[Cloning proviral DNA sequences of the human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-1) from the genome of cultured MT-4 cells].

MT-4 cell line is a continuous strain of human T lymphocytes expressing defective noninfective subviral HTLV-1 particles. A fragment of sequence encoding the p24 protein and gene for envelope protein (env) have been obtained from genomic DNA of this culture by polymerase chain reaction. Both HTLV-1 fragments were cloned in bacterial vectors, and the nucleotide sequence of these regions was determined. The cloned DNA fragment encoding the p24 has only four point nucleotide exchanges. Analysis of the env gene structure revealed that the sequence had several amino acid exchanges and two deletions (13 bp and 70 bp).