Endemic Human T Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type II Infection among Isolated Brazilian Amerindians

Abstract

Evidence for human T cell lymphotropic viruses (HTLV) was sought in sera and cells collected from adults in 13 isolated South and Central American Indian tribes. Serologic tests identified frequent HTLV-II-like reactivity among the Cayapo and Kraho tribes, who live 330 km apart in Central Brazil. Polymerase chain reaction analyses of viral DNA in cell pellet and plasma fractions confirmed the virus as HTLV-II. Both tribes speak Gé and, at the time of blood collection (1974), subsisted as hunter/gatherers and slash and burn agriculturalists. Further testing of plasma from Cayapo and Kraho of all ages revealed overall HTLV-II prevalence rates of 33.3% and 12.2%, respectively, with increasing prevalence associated with age and female gender. These data reveal for the first time a high prevalence of HTLV-II infection in remote South American Indians with little contact with non-Indians. Thus, HTLV-II is postulated to be an ancient human virus in the New World.

The presence of a divergent T-lymphotropic virus in a wild-caught pygmy chimpanzee (Pan paniscus) supports an African origin for the human T-lymphotropic/simian T-lymphotropic group of viruses

“…The DNA was extracted using phenol-chloroform (Life Technologies), precipitated with ethanol and dissolved in Milli-Q water (Millipore). DNA from 105 cells was used for amplification with the nested TR101-104 primer set (tax region; Maloney et al, 1992) or with the nested PCR primer set TR101-HFL102 (outer)/TR103-HFL104 (inner) [HFL102, 5' TG(A/T)A(G/C)TAC(C/T)AAAGATGGCTG 3' (antisense, complementary to nt 8115 8134 of HTLV-I ATK1); HFL104, 5' GG(C/T)A(A/G)GGICCGGAAATCAT 3' (antisense, complementary to nt 8085 8103 of ATK1)]. All amplifications were done in PCR buffer, 200 lara nucleotide triphosphates, 0.8 laM outer primers or 0.5 IxM inner primers and 0.025 U/~tl AmpliTaq (Perkin-Elmer) using 3 mraMgCla for the TR primers and 2 mM-MgCI 2 for the TR/HFL primer sets, in a 50 ~tl reaction volume.…”

“…From both the original lymphocytes and the PP1664 cell line, a 159 bp fragment was obtained in a nested PCR using the TR101-104 primers (Liu et al, 1994b;Maloney et al, 1992). The SK110-111 primers (Kwok et al, 1988) in the pol region gave negative results (data not shown).…”

“…The very stable genome of these viruses provides an excellent tool for investigating the origin of PTLV in general and of HTLV-I and HTLV-II in particular (Gessain et al, 1992;Komurian et al, 1991 ;Liu et al, 1994a). The discovery of divergent Asian STLV-I (Song et al, 1994;Watanabe et al, 1986) and Asian and Australian HTLV-I strains (Bastian et aL, 1992;Gessain et al, 1993) together with the presence of HTLV-II among native Amerindians Lairmore et al, 1990;Maloney et al, 1992) support an Asian origin of PTLV. However, recent phylogenetic studies using divergent African and Asian STLV-I strains support an African origin of the African and cosmopolitan HTLV-I strains, and an Asian origin of the Melanesian and Australian HTLV-I strains, implying several separate interspecies transmissions (Koralnik et al, 1994;Saksena et al, 1994;Song et al, 1994;Vandamme et al, 1994).…”

Prevalence of antibody to human T cell lymphotropic virus types 1/2 among aboriginal groups inhabiting northern Argentina and the Amazon region of Peru.

“…4 More interestingly, HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 have been identified in several aboriginal Indian populations in the Americas. 4,5 New World Indian tribes in which an elevated prevalence of HTLV-2 has been reported include the Guaymi tribe of Panama, 6 the Athapaskan and Pueblo groups of the southwestern United states, 7 the Ge-speaking tribes of Amazonia, 8 Florida Indians, 9 the Wayuu 10 and Tunebo Indians of Colombia, 11 and the Tobas of Bolivia and Paraguay. 12 Recently, a high rate of infection with HTLV-2 has been reported in Indian populations from Argentina.…”

Characterization of a simian T-lymphotropic virus from a wild-caught orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) from Kalimantan, Indonesia.

“…From the blood sample of OU-KA DNA was isolated and analysed in a semi-nested PCR assay specific for the tax\rex region of HTLV-I\STLV-I and HTLV-II (Maloney et al, 1992 ;Ibrahim et al, 1995). A 118 bp fragment was amplified indicating infection of OU-KA with a HTLV-like virus (results not shown).…”