We studied the presence of tax and ltrgenes from human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) provirus in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 15 seronegative patients with tropical spastic paraparesis or HTLV-I-associated myelopathy by PCR. Only a region of the tax gene from 10 patients was amplified. The nucleotide homologies of six Chilean isolates to the ATK-1 clone ranged between 98.7 and 99.4%.
Comparison of a human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I strain from cerebrospinal fluid of a Jamaican patient with tropical spastic paraparesis with a prototype human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I.