HTLV-1 drives vigorous clonal expansion of infected CD8 + T cells in natural infection
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background
Human T-lymphotropic Virus Type I (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that persistently infects 5–10 million individuals worldwide and causes disabling or fatal inflammatory and malignant diseases. The majority of the HTLV-1 proviral load is found in CD4 + T cells, and the phenotype of adult T cell leukemia (ATL) is typically CD4 + . HTLV-1 also infects CD8 + cells in vivo, but the relative abundance and clonal composition of the two infected subpopulations have not been studied. We used a high-throughput DNA sequencing protocol to map and quantify HTLV-1 proviral integration sites in separated populations of CD4 + cells, CD8 + cells and unsorted peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 12 HTLV-1-infected individuals.
Results
We show that the infected CD8 + cells constitute a median of 5 % of the HTLV-1 proviral load. However, HTLV-1-infected CD8 + clones undergo much greater oligoclonal proliferation than the infected CD4 + clones in infected individuals, regardless of disease manifestation. The CD8 + clones are over-represented among the most abundant clones in the blood and are redetected even after several years.
Conclusions
We conclude that although they make up only 5 % of the proviral load, the HTLV-1-infected CD8 + T-cells make a major impact on the clonal composition of HTLV-1-infected cells in the blood. The greater degree of oligoclonal expansion observed in the infected CD8 + T cells, contrasts with the CD4 + phenotype of ATL; cases of CD8 + adult T-cell leukaemia/lymphoma are rare. This work is consistent with growing evidence that oligoclonal expansion of HTLV-1-infected cells is not sufficient for malignant transformation.
Human T-lymphotropic Virus Type I (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that persistently infects 5–10 million individuals worldwide and causes disabling or fatal inflammatory and malignant diseases. The majority of the HTLV-1 proviral load is found in CD4 + T cells, and the phenotype of adult T cell leukemia (ATL) is typically CD4 + . HTLV-1 also infects CD8 + cells in vivo, but the relative abundance and clonal composition of the two infected subpopulations have not been studied. We used a high-throughput DNA sequencing protocol to map and quantify HTLV-1 proviral integration sites in separated populations of CD4 + cells, CD8 + cells and unsorted peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 12 HTLV-1-infected individuals.
Results
We show that the infected CD8 + cells constitute a median of 5 % of the HTLV-1 proviral load. However, HTLV-1-infected CD8 + clones undergo much greater oligoclonal proliferation than the infected CD4 + clones in infected individuals, regardless of disease manifestation. The CD8 + clones are over-represented among the most abundant clones in the blood and are redetected even after several years.
Conclusions
We conclude that although they make up only 5 % of the proviral load, the HTLV-1-infected CD8 + T-cells make a major impact on the clonal composition of HTLV-1-infected cells in the blood. The greater degree of oligoclonal expansion observed in the infected CD8 + T cells, contrasts with the CD4 + phenotype of ATL; cases of CD8 + adult T-cell leukaemia/lymphoma are rare. This work is consistent with growing evidence that oligoclonal expansion of HTLV-1-infected cells is not sufficient for malignant transformation.
Date Issued
2015-11-09
Date Acceptance
2015-11-02
Citation
Retrovirology, 2015, 12
ISSN
1742-4690
Publisher
BioMed Central
Journal / Book Title
Retrovirology
Volume
12
Copyright Statement
© 2015 Melamed et al.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
License URL
Subjects
Human retroviral infection
HTLV-1
Clonality
Integration
Cytotoxic T cells
Latency
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
91