Genomes of evolutionarily divergent members of the human T-cell leukemia virus family (HTLV-I and HTLV-II) are highly conserved, especially in pX.

Human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV) is a family of related human T-lymphotropic retroviruses closely linked with certain human T-cell malignancies and associated with many cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). We isolated and molecularly cloned HTLV from patients with both types of clinical disorders and found by restriction endonuclease mapping and core and envelope protein analysis that at least two evolutionarily divergent viral subgroups exist, HTLV-I and HTLV-II. Previous studies have failed to detect significant nucleotide sequence homology between HTLV-I and HTLV-II even though these different members of the HTLV family share certain biologic properties such as T-cell tropism and transformation. To further test these viruses for conserved regions in their genomes, we examined hybridization between HTLV-I and HTLV-II by using Southern blotting and heteroduplex mapping at different melting points. These two techniques produced similar results, showing that HTLV-I and HTLV-II proviruses have, in fact, strongly conserved nucleotide sequences in the pX region and lesser although still substantial homology in the LTR, gag, pol, and env regions. These data provide experimental evidence that HTLV-II, like HTLV-I, contains pX sequences. Although the function of pX is unknown, its conservation in evolutionarily divergent human T-lymphotropic viruses implies a biologically important function. It is possible, but unproven, that pX could encode proteins involved in T-cell tropism, cell transformation, immune suppression, or other biologic actions characteristic of the HTLV family.