1. Frequent horizontal and mother-to-child transmission may contribute to high prevalence of STLV-1 infection in Japanese macaques
- Author
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Anna Hu, Megumi Murata, Kazu Okuma, Isao Hamaguchi, Wei Keat Tan, Hirofumi Akari, Masao Matsuoka, Jun-ichirou Yasunaga, Ayaka Washizaki, Madoka Kuramitsu, Takuo Mizukami, and Yohei Seki
- Subjects
Male ,lcsh:Immunologic diseases. Allergy ,Proviral load ,Physiology ,Biology ,Simian ,Antibodies, Viral ,Virus ,law.invention ,Macaca fuscata ,03 medical and health sciences ,Japan ,Proviruses ,law ,Seroepidemiologic Studies ,Virology ,Tropical spastic paraparesis ,medicine ,Disease Transmission, Infectious ,Prevalence ,Seroprevalence ,Animals ,Seroconversion ,030304 developmental biology ,Japanese macaques ,0303 health sciences ,Deltaretrovirus Infections ,Antibody titer ,030306 microbiology ,Mother-to-child transmission ,Incidence (epidemiology) ,Research ,STLV-1 ,biology.organism_classification ,medicine.disease ,Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical ,Infectious Diseases ,Transmission (mechanics) ,Female ,Simian T-lymphotropic virus 1 ,lcsh:RC581-607 ,Horizontal transmission ,Follow-Up Studies - Abstract
BackgroundSimian T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (STLV-1) is disseminated among various non-human primate species and is closely related to human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), the causative agent of adult T-cell leukemia and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. Notably, the prevalence of STLV-1 infection in Japanese macaques (JMs) is estimated to be > 60%, much greater than that in other non-human primates; however, the mechanism and mode of STLV-1 transmission remain unknown. The aim of this study is to examine the epidemiological background by which STLV-1 infection is highly prevalent in JMs.ResultsThe prevalence of STLV-1 in the JMs rearing in our free-range facility reached up to 64% (180/280 JMs) with variation from 55 to 77% among five independent troops. Anti-STLV-1 antibody titers (ABTs) and STLV-1 proviral loads (PVLs) were normally distributed with mean values of 4076 and 0.62%, respectively, which were mostly comparable to those of HTLV-1-infected humans. Our initial hypothesis that some of the macaques might contribute to frequent horizontal STLV-1 transmission as viral super-spreaders was unlikely because of the absence of the macaques exhibiting abnormally high PVLs but poor ABTs. Rather, ABTs and PVLs were statistically correlated (p ConclusionsTogether with the fact that almost all of the full-adult JMs older than 9 years old were infected with STLV-1, our results of this study demonstrated for the first time that frequent horizontal and mother-to-child transmission may contribute to high prevalence of STLV-1 infection in JMs.
- Published
- 2020