1. Absence of Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Type I in Japanese Patients With Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma
- Author
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Takeji Nishikawa, Arata Kikuchi, Yasuo Ikeda, and Kazunari Yamaguchi
- Subjects
viruses ,Immunology ,Human T-lymphotropic virus ,Biochemistry ,Virus ,law.invention ,Retrovirus ,immune system diseases ,law ,hemic and lymphatic diseases ,medicine ,Polymerase chain reaction ,biology ,business.industry ,Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma ,virus diseases ,Cell Biology ,Hematology ,medicine.disease ,biology.organism_classification ,Virology ,Peripheral T-cell lymphoma ,Lymphoma ,Leukemia ,business - Abstract
Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) is a disease entity characterized by a primary sporadic T-cell proliferation in the skin. Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that causes adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma. Recently, several authors have detected the HTLV-1 genome in genomic DNA from patients with CTCL and proposed a causal relation of HTLV-1 to CTCL. However, it remains controversial because these studies contain some problems in materials used to detect HTLV-1. We investigated both fresh and cultured T lymphocytes (128 specimens) derived from 50 Japanese patients with CTCL, where HTLV-1 is endemic, by using polymerase chain reaction with four sets of primers including gag,pol,env, and pX regions of HTLV-1 to elucidate the relationship between HTLV-1 and CTCL in Japan. However, none of the 128 DNA specimens revealed positive for HTLV-1 in contrast to the previous studies. We conclude that CTCL, which does not include HTLV-1, is present although the pathogenesis of CTCL may be different by areas or races. © 1997 by The American Society of Hematology.
- Published
- 1997