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Excerpt
The origin and worldwide dissemination pathways of Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) are not entirely clear. Recently a cluster of HTIJV-I infection among Jewish people originating from Mashed (Northern Iran) has been described. It is well known that descendants of Jewish people from Northern Iran migrated during the reign of Tamerlan (1380-1393) to Bukhara where they are still living as an isolated community not assimilating with local populations. In our previous investigations 310 sera obtained from Jewish people in Bukhara have been tested in HTLV-I screening and confirmatory tests and 5 of them were found as serologically indeterminate with a large spectrum of HTLV-I Gag-specific antibodies. The objective of this study was to clarify whether HTLV-specific sequences could be detected in PBLs of sero-indeterminate individuals. DNA samples from blood of 3 sero-indeterminate individuals and their 11 blood relatives were prepared in Moscow and tested for virus sequences independently in Moscow Cancer Research Center (MCRC) and Rega Institute (RI), Leuven, Belgium. Of 14 DNA samples tested by nested PCR with primers for pX region in MCRC. 10 samples have been found to be positive. Of the same 10 DNA samples tested in RI, 9 samples were confirmed to be positive with generic PTVL-PCR tax-rex primers (entirely overlapping with primers used in MCRC), but negative with PTLV-PCR env primers. It was also shown that the detected sequences belong to the HIIJV-I subtype. On the basis of the results obtained one can speculate that either PCR contamination or defective variants of HTLV-I (env-) were the cause of this HILV reactivity in sero-indeterminate individuals and their relatives in Bukhara Recollection of new blood samples from the affected individuals and sequence analyses are required to clarify these controversial findings.
