Nucleotide sequence analysis of human T-cell leukemia virus type II.

The total nucleotide sequence of an infectious clone of human T-cell leukemia virus type II (HTLV-II) provirus was determined. The provirus has 8,952 nucleotides with a long terminal repeat (LTR) at each end. The LTR consists of 341 +/- 1 bases of U3, 248 +/- 1 bases of R, and 201 bases of U5 regions. There are gag, pol, and env coding frames in this order from the 5' end of the provirus as in other avian or mammalian retroviruses. A coding frame that can code 178 amino acid residues found between gag and pol is supposed to be for a protease that hydrolyses a gag precursor protein to matured gag proteins. The gag and protease genes and the pol and env genes, respectively, partly overlap. In the region termed X between env and 3' LTR, there are three major open reading frames. Oligopeptides deduced from the sequence of one of the open reading frame in HTLV-I were synthesized chemically, and antibodies against these peptides were raised in rabbits. With these antibodies, 41 kdalton and 38 kdalton proteins were detected in cells infected with HTLV-I and HTLV-II, respectively.