HAM/TSP patients with high proviral load have HTLV-1 Tax 11-19–specific T cells with low degeneracy of T-cell recognition.
Twenty-two patients with HAM/TSP who had HLA-A*02 were divided into 2 groups according to whether their proviral load is higher or lower than the median proviral load (481 copies/104 PBMCs). The high proviral load group (mean, 1190.0 copies/104 PBMCs; n = 11) had significantly higher proviral load than the low proviral load group (mean, 250.2 copies/104 PBMCs; n = 11;P < .0001, Mann-Whitney U test). The relative recognition of HTLV-1 Tax 11-19–specific T cells for Y5A was higher in the patient group with low proviral load than in the patient group with high proviral load (P = .033; Mann-Whitney Utest). There were no significant differences between the 2 groups for other APLs including G4A, P6A, and Y8A (data not shown). The column and vertical bar indicate the mean and SE, respectively.
