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Samantha S. Soldan, Michael D. Graf, Allen Waziri, Alfred N. Flerlage, Susan M. Robinson, Taketo Kawanishi, Thomas P. Leist, Tanya J. Lehky, Michael C. Levin, Steven Jacobson, HTLV-I/II Seroindeterminate Western Blot Reactivity in a Cohort of Patients with Neurological Disease, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 180, Issue 3, September 1999, Pages 685–694, https://doi.org/10.1086/314923
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Abstract
The human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is associated with a chronic, progressive neurological disease known as HTLV-I—associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. Screening for HTLV-I involves the detection of virus-specific serum antibodies by EIA and confirmation by Western blot. HTLV-I/II seroindeterminate Western blot patterns have been described worldwide. However, the significance of this blot pattern is unclear. We identified 8 patients with neurological disease and an HTLV-I/II seroindeterminate Western blot pattern, none of whom demonstrated increased spontaneous proliferation and HTLV-I—specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity. However, HTLV-I tax sequence was amplified from the peripheral blood lymphocytes of 4 of them. These data suggest that patients with chronic progressive neurological disease and HTLV-I/II Western blot seroindeterminate reactivity may harbor either defective HTLV-I, novel retrovirus with partial homology to HTLV-I, or HTLV-I in low copy number.