Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute vasculitis of infancy and early childhood characterized by high fever, rash, mucositis, lymphadenopathy and coronary artery damage. Large epidemics have been described in Japan and the United States and the number of cases reported annually is steadily increasing. The aetiology of KD is unknown. During the acute phase of the disease marked immunologic alterations occur including generalized T-cell lymphocytopenia, activation of circulating T4+ helper T cells, decreased numbers of T8+ suppressor T cells and marked B-cell activation. We postulated that a lymphotropic virus with affinity for endothelial and lymphoid cells might explain the vasculitis and immunological abnormalities in KD. We report here our study of the particulate fraction from culture supernatants of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) for evidence of retrovirus-associated reverse transcriptase (RT) activity. Activity was found in the supernatants from KD patients but not control cultures. This RT activity was transmitted to an established T-cell line (HUT-78) and thus may be due to an exogenous agent infecting KD lymphocytes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.