HUMAN T-CELL-LEUKEMIA VIRUS TYPE-I IN POSTTRANSFUSIONAL SPASTIC PARAPARESIS - COMPLETE PROVIRAL SEQUENCE FROM UNCULTURED BLOOD-CELLS

Human-T-cell-leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) is the causative agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and tropical spastic paraparesis/ HTLV-I-associated myelopathy (TSP/HAM). The different disease outcome may be attributable to subtle mutations leading to modification of vir al tropism or infectivity. Initial attempts found a very high level of sequence conservation among all HTLV-I strains. However, only one com plete proviral DNA sequence is reported from a TSP/HAM patient, with a provirus derived from immortalized lymphocytes, which might be expect ed to be a leukemogenic variant rather than a neutrotropic one. We clo ned and sequenced a complete HTLV-I provirus (HTLV-I-Boi) derived from the uncultured lymphocytes of a sub-acute post-transfusional TSP/HAM patient with clonal integration of HTLV-I. HTLV-I-Boi proviral genome is 9033 bp long, and its overall genetic organization is similar to th at of the prototype HTLV-I(ATK), without major deletions or insertions . No premature termination codon was found in the 4 open reading frame s of the pX region. Divergence at the nucleotide level of HTLV-I-Boi f rom the reported full-length HTLV-I varies from 1 to 9.4%, and indicat es that it corresponds to a cosmopolitan genotype. This study did not identify specific sequences associated with neurotropic strains. (C) 1 995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.