Comparison of a human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I strain from cerebrospinal fluid of a Jamaican patient with tropical spastic paraparesis with a prototype human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I

The isolation and characterization of a human T-cell lymphotrophic virus type I (HTLV-I) from cerebrospinal fluid of a Jamaican patient with tropical spastic paraparesis is described. The virus isolate is a typical type C retrovirus as seen by electron microscopy and is related to prototype HTLV-I isolated from patients with adult T-cell leukemia but is not identical to this prototype HTLV-I as seen by restriction enzyme mapping.(AU)

The role of HTLV-I in tropical spastic paraparesis in Jamaica

We report clinical and laboratory investigations of 47 native-born Jamaican patients with endemic tropical spastic paraparesis and of 1 patient with tropical ataxic neuropathy. Mean age at onset was 40 years, with a female-male preponderance (2.7:1). Neurological features of endemic tropical spastic paraparesis are predominantly those of a spastic paraparesis with variable degrees of proprioceptive and/or superficial sensory impairment. Using enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA), IgG antibodies to human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) were present in 82 percent of sera and 77 percent of cerebrospinal fluids. On Westren blot analysis, IgG antibodies detected the p19 and p24 gag-encoded core proteins in both serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Titers were tenfold higher by ELISA in serum than in cerebrospinal fluid, and some oligoclonal bands present in fluid were not seen in serum . Serum-cerebrospinal fluid albumin ratios wer normal, and IgG indexes indicated intrathecal IgG synthesis. Histopathological changes showed a chronic inflammatry reaction with mononuclear cell infiltration, perivascular cuffing, and demyelination that was predominant in the lateral colmns. In 1 patient, a retrovirus morphologically similar to HTLV-I on electron microscopy was isolated from spinal fluid. Our investgations show that endemic tropical spastic paraparesis in Jamaica is a retrovirus-assiciated myelopathy and that HTLV-I or an antigenically similar retrovirus is the causal agent. (AU)

The human type-C retrovirus, in Blacks from the Caribbean region, and relationship to adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma

Type-C RNA tumour viruses have been implicated in the etiology of naturally occurring leukemias and lymphomas of animals. Human T-cell leukimia/lymphoma virus (HTLV) is the first human virus of this class consistently identified in association with a specific type of human leukemia/lymphoma. The isolation of HTLV was made possible by the ability to grow mature T-cell in tissue culture usually with T-cell growth factor (TCGF). We now report a cluster usually with T-cell leukemia/lymphoma among Blacks from the Caribbean in which all eight cases are positive for HLV virus and/or antibody. These patients have diseases that appears indistinguisable from Japanese adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma which, as we have also reported, is associated with HTLV in over 90 percent of cases. The finding of HTLV antibodies in some of the normal population in the Caribbean and Japan, and the clustering of a specific form of T-cell leukemia/lyphoma in these virus-endemic areas, suggest that HTLV infection may be associated with the occurrence of a distinctive clinico-pathologic entity (Summary)