Assessment of Genetic Diversity of HTLV-1 ORF-I Sequences Collected from Patients with Different Clinical Profiles

AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2019 Sep;35(9):881-884. doi: 10.1089/AID.2019.0127. Epub 2019 Jul 10.

ABSTRACT

The human T cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infects 5 to 10 million individuals and remains without specific treatment. This retrovirus genome is composed of the genes gag, pol, env, and a region known as pX. This region contains four open reading frames (ORFs) that encode specific proteins. The ORF-I produces the protein p12 and its cleavage product, p8. In this study, we analyzed the genetic diversity of 32 ORF-I sequences from patients with different clinical profiles. Seven amino acid changes with frequency over 5% were identified: G29S, P34L, L55F, F61L, S63P, F78L, and S91P. The identification of regions where the posttranslational sites were identified showed a high identity among the sequences and the amino acid changes exclusive of specific clinical profile were found in less than 5% of the samples. We compare the findings with 2.406 sequences available in GenBank. The low overall genetic diversity found suggested that this region could be used in the HTLV-1 vaccine development.

PMID:31154802 | DOI:10.1089/AID.2019.0127