Oligoclonal proliferation of human T-cell leukemia virus type I infected lymphocytes in lesions of virus-induced arthropathy.

To investigate the pathogenesis of human T-cell leukemia virus type I associated arthropathy, the mode of proviral integration in the pathological lesions was analyzed using ligation-mediated polymerase chain reaction. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of these patients possessed multiple dominant clones of the virus-infected cells. On the other hand, synovial fluid cells of the affected joints exhibited fewer dominant clones even though the copy numbers of the provirus were comparable to those of PBMC. Thus, restricted HTLV-I infected T cell clones may proliferate and expand in the lesions.