High Rate of Human T Lymphotropic Virus Type IIa Infection in HIV Type 1-Infected Intravenous Drug Abusers in Ireland

Abstract

Serological and molecular analyses of a cohort of HIV-1-infected intravenous drug ah users (IVDAs) (n = 103) in Dublin, Ireland have demonstrated that 15 of 103 (14.6%) were infected with HTLV-II, which is the highest infection rate yet recorded for any European country. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the env region of the pro virus demonstrated that the infection involved only the HTLV-IIa subtype; the HTLV-IIb subtype was not detected. Phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences of the long terminal repeat (LTR) confirmed infection with the HTLV-IIa subtype, and demonstrated that the viruses clustered closely with HTLV-IIa isolates from North American IVDAs. Previous observations that IVDAs in southern Europe, specifically Spain and Italy, appear to be infected predominantly with the HTLV-IIb subtype, along with the present report and evidence that IVDAs in Sweden arc infected with the HTLV-IIa subtype, suggest different origins of HTLV-II infection in Europe.

Molecular epidemiology of HTLV-2 infection among intravenous drug users in Spain

“…These isolates were closely to previously reported Spanish and Italian HTLV-2 strains collected from IDUs. Given that 20 of these individuals had been found as HTLV-2 positives only since 2001, our results argue against a recent spread of other HTLV-2 variants in Spain, being HTLV-2b subtype still the responsible for almost all cases in southern Europe; in contrast with HTLV-2a subtype, which is the most prevalent among northern European IDUs (Anderson et al, 1995;Egan et al, 1999;Salemi et al, 1998Salemi et al, , 1999b. The recognition of a cluster in which all HTLV-2 strains collected from Spanish and Italian IDUs along with some of the heterogeneous HTLV-2 isolates from North American IDUs were grouped supports the hypothesis of a North American introduction of HTLV-2 in southern Europe due to Europe-USA/IDU connections.…”

Human T Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type 2a Strains Among HIV Type 1-Coinfected Patients from Brazil Have Originated Mostly from Brazilian Amerindians

“…DNA samples were extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. The established protocol for amplification and sequencing the LTR region was previously published, 22 and for the env and tax regions were based on protocols previously described, 13,23,24 in which one primer has undergone minor nucleotide modification and thermal cycling conditions were adjusted (Supplementary Table S1; Supplementary Data are available online at www.liebertpub.com/aid). Still, in both protocols the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and nested PCR were improved in stability using the GoTaq Colorless Master Mix (Promega Corporation, Madison, WI).…”

HTLV‐II infection associated with a chronic neurodegenerative disease: Clinical and molecular analysis

“…In these human groups HTLV II is probably an ancient virus that came with the original migratory populations through the Bering land bridge 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. During the 1970s this virus started spreading among intravenous drug abusers in the US [Hjelle et al, 1993;Takahashi et al, 1993], Europe [Salemi et al, 1995[Salemi et al, , 1996Vallejo et al, 1996;Egan et al, 1999] and Asia [Fukushima et al, 1998]. In this risk group, HTLV II is usually found in individuals infected also with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV I.…”