A case of HTLV-I/II myelopathy in which the initial complaint was erectile insufficiency (EI) is reported. The only abnormalities found on the neurological exam were discrete weakness of the psoas and increased knee jerk reflexes. Diagnosis was made by demonstrating antibodies anti-HTLV I/II in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid (with the techniques of ELISA and Western blot), with confirmation ...

Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1), the etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia, encodes unique regulatory and accessory proteins in the pX region of the provirus, including the open reading frame II product p13(II). p13(II) localizes to mitochondria, binds farnesyl pyrophosphate synthetase, an enzyme involved in posttranslational farnesylation of Ras, and alters Ras-dependent cell s...

The majority of human T-cell leukemia virus isolates (HTLV-I) are associated with clinically aggressive adult T-cell leukemia/lymphomas. By contrast, HTLV-II has been isolated from a patient with a relatively benign hairy T-cell leukemia. To characterize differences in the viral genomes that might contribute to these different pathologies, we determined the nucleotide sequence of the long termi...

We studied a patient with large granular lymphocyte (LGL) leukemia for evidence of human T-cell leukemia/lymphoma virus (HTLV) infection. Serum from this patient was positive for HTLV-I/ II antibodies by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and was confirmed positive in Western blot and radioimmunoprecipitation assays. Results of a synthetic peptide-based ELISA showed that the seropositivi...

We evaluated two commercial human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV) Western blot (WB; immunoblot) kits, Cambridge Biotech Corp. (CBC) and Diagnostic Biotechnology Ltd. (DBL). Both methods employ HTLV type I (HTLV-I) viral lysate and rgp21. The DBL WB kit also distinguishes between HTLV-I and HTLV-II antibodies, using an HTLV-I-specific and an HTLV-II-specific recombinant. Fifty weakly reactive H...

OBJECTIVE This study was aimed at determining anti-human T-lymphotropic virus I/II (HTLV I/II) seroprevalence amongst blood-donors at the Clínica Reina Sofía in Bogotá, Colombia between 1999 and 2004. METHODS All people donating blood at the Clínica Reina Sofía were selected for anti-HTLV I/II testing; a survey was carried out which focused on risk factors. All blood donations were screened b...

Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type II (HTLV-II) primarily infects two different populations in which the virus is transmitted in very diverse ways. In endemically infected populations, the virus is propagated through sexual contact, and by mother to child transmission via breast-feeding, among intravenous drug users (IDUs), spread is mainly due to blood-borne transmission via needle sharing. ...

Apart from HIV two exogenous retroviruses (human T cell leukaemia viruses type I (HTLV-I) and type II (HTLV-II)) infect humans. HTLV-I infection is endemic in Japan, the Caribbean, Africa, and Melanesia and is found among immigrants from these regions in Europe. HTLV-I infection is associated with a 1-5% lifetime risk of adult T cell leukaemia/lymphoma, a 0.25% lifetime risk of HTLV-I associate...

The major internal structural protein of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III), a virus etiologically implicated in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), was purified to homogeneity. This 24,000-molecular-weight protein (p24) was shown to lack immunologic cross-reacting antigenic determinants shared by other known retroviruses, including HTLV-I and HTLV-II, with the exception...

tion was associated with an observable survival benefit and delay in progression to AIDS among HIV-1–infected IDUs. 3 While HTLV-I has been definitively proven to cause adult T-cell leukemia/lym-phoma and a progressive neurodegenerative illness known as tropical spastic parapare-sis/HTLV-I–associated myelopathy (TSP/ HAM), a causal role for HTLV-II with either leukemia or TSP/HAM is much less w...