Kubota R, Umehara F, Izumo S, Ijichi S, Matsumuro K, Yashiki S, Fujiyoshi T, Sonoda S, Osame M
Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Japan.
J Neuroimmunol. 1994 Aug;53(1):23-9. doi: 10.1016/0165-5728(94)90060-4.
A quantitative method utilizing polymerase chain reaction was employed to evaluate the amount of human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) proviral DNA in the affected spinal cords from patients with HTLV-I-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). Central nervous system (CNS) tissues were obtained at post-mortem from five patients with HAM/TSP, who vary in the duration of illness from 2.5-10 years, and one patient with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL), who had leukemic cell infiltration in the CNS. The presence of HTLV-I pX and pol sequences in the CNS tissues were demonstrated in all patients examined. In HAM/TSP, the proviral DNA quantified in the thoracic cord was 0.002-2 copies per 100 tissue cells, and that in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) was 2-8 copies per 100 PBMC. The proviral DNA amount in the thoracic cord of the patient with ATL was 0.4 copies per 100 tissue cells. An apparent propensity for the amount of integrated HTLV-I in the thoracic cord to decrease with the disease duration in patients with HAM/TSP was observed. The decline in HTLV-I proviral DNA amount in the thoracic cord lesions was paralleled with the alteration of proportion of CD4+ T lymphocytes in patients with HAM/TSP. These findings suggest that preferential virus reservoir may be infiltrating CD4+ T lymphocytes in the spinal cord lesions of patients with HAM/TSP, and HTLV-I infection in the CNS of patients is declining with the disease duration in spite of the chronic course of neurological manifestations at least in some patients with HAM/TSP.
采用一种利用聚合酶链反应的定量方法，评估人类I型T细胞白血病病毒（HTLV-I）相关脊髓病/热带痉挛性截瘫（HAM/TSP）患者受累脊髓中HTLV-I前病毒DNA的含量。从五名HAM/TSP患者的尸检中获取中枢神经系统（CNS）组织，这些患者的病程从2.5年至10年不等，还有一名成人T细胞白血病（ATL）患者，其CNS有白血病细胞浸润。在所有检测的患者中均证实CNS组织中存在HTLV-I pX和pol序列。在HAM/TSP患者中，胸段脊髓中定量的前病毒DNA为每100个组织细胞0.002 - 2拷贝，外周血单个核细胞（PBMC）中为每100个PBMC 2 - 8拷贝。ATL患者胸段脊髓中的前病毒DNA量为每100个组织细胞0.4拷贝。观察到HAM/TSP患者胸段脊髓中整合的HTLV-I量有随病程下降的明显倾向。HAM/TSP患者胸段脊髓病变中HTLV-I前病毒DNA量的下降与CD4 + T淋巴细胞比例的改变平行。这些发现表明，在HAM/TSP患者脊髓病变中，优先的病毒储存库可能是浸润的CD4 + T淋巴细胞，并且尽管至少在一些HAM/TSP患者中神经症状呈慢性病程，但患者CNS中的HTLV-I感染随病程在下降。
