Human retrovirus 5 sequences in peripheral blood cells of patients with B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma

A recently described sequence from a probable 5th human exogenous retroviru s, HRV-5, is related to type A, B and D retroviruses, It was initially dete cted in a salivary gland biopsy from a patient with Sjogren's syndrome, but it is not consistently associated with this disease. We searched for the H RV-5 sequence in DNA extracted from whole brood of 300 blood donors, 81 pat ients with hematological malignancy and 21 patients with neurological disea se using PCR. While samples from none of the blood donors and the neurologi cal patients became positive, 3 of the 81 patients with hematological malig nancy were HRV-5 DNA positive. All 3 had B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of l ow grade. The difference in frequency between NHL and controls is statistic ally significant. HRV-5 DNA was found in DNA from whole brood and in plasti c-adherent cells but not in tumor cell DNA. Thus, monocytes/macrophages may be preferred targets for HRV-5. Our result, together with a previous findi ng of HRV-5 DNA in 2 NHL cases, is compatible with an association between H RV-5 and NHL, whether causal or not. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.