Correlation between high susceptibility to AIDS virus and surface expression of OKT-4 antigen in HTLV-I-positive cell lines.

Most human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I)-carrying cell lines possess high susceptibility to AIDS retrovirus. This high permissiveness was clearly correlated with the amount of OKT-4 molecules, the possible receptor for AIDS retrovirus, expressed on the cell surface of HTLV-I-bearing cell lines. However, no correlation was noted in HTLV-I-negative cell lines.