Importance of immune deviation toward Th1 in the early immunopathogenesis of human T-lymphotropic virus type I-associated myelopathy

Whipple's Disease: the First Japanese Case Diagnosed by Electron Microscopy and Polymerase Chain Reaction

“…Most individuals chronically infected with HTLV-I remain asymptomatic; however, some of them may have a significant form of chronic immune suppression and, as a consequence, this affects the risk of other infectious diseases including strongyloidiasis and tuberculosis (11). Increasing evidence has indicated the immune deviation toward Th1 with a high production of IL-2, IL-12, and IFN-in the asymptomatic state and early immunopathogenesis of HTLV-I infection (12,13). Therefore, the hypothesis of Th1/Th2 balance fails to explain solely this complicated pathogenesis whether or not coinfection with HTLV-I involves the onset of Whipple's disease in our case.…”

Increased mRNA Expression of Th1-Cytokine Signaling Molecules in Patients with HTLV-I-Associated Myelopathy/Tropical Spastic Paraparesis

“…From the point of view of SOCS expression, our data revealed that the Th1/Th2 balance is toward Th1 immune activation in HTLV-I-infected individuals. We previously reported the importance of Th1 immune deviation in the development of HAM/TSP (Nakamura et al 2000b). However, as far as the pattern of SOCS mRNA expression is concerned, there was no significant difference between HAM/TSP patients and HTLV-I-infected individuals without HAM/TSP.…”

“…Previously, cytokine studies in HAM/TSP patients have revealed elevated serum, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and CD4 + cell culture supernatant levels of interferon-γ (IFN-γ ) (Kuroda and Matsui 1993;Nishiura et al 1996;Furuya et al 1999) and high intracellular IFN-γ + /interleukin-4 + (IL-4 + ) cell ratio in CD4 + T cells (Horiuchi et al 2000), suggesting that the immunological state of HAM/TSP patients is under Th1 activation (Nakamura et al 2000b). On the other hand, HTLV-I infection also causes production of Th2 cytokines (Mogensen and Paludan 2001).…”

Htlv1 Associated Myelopathy, Its Diagnosis, Management and Complications

“…Moreover, examination of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of HAM/TSP patients has been reported higher percentage of HTLV-I-infected cells in CSF compared with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with a pro-viral load ratio of more than 10% in CSF vs. more than 1% in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, respectively. This ratio has been reported to be less than 10% (CSF) and less than 1% (PBMC) in asymptomatic HTLV1 carriers in comparative studies [18][19][20].…”

“…The HTLV1 associated myelopathy is even less frequent than hematologic complications with the incidence of 1-2%, respectively. The latency period for HTLV1 associated lymphoma has been reported to be as long as [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] months has been reported in rare cases [4,10]. Co-incidence of HTLV1 associated myelopathy and lymphoproliferative disorders has not been reported.…”