In vitro basal T-cell proliferation among asymptomatic Human T cell Leukemia Virus type 1 patients co-infected with hepatitis C and/or Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1

In vitro basal T-cell proliferation among asymptomatic Human T cell Leukemia Virus type 1 patients co-infected with hepatitis C and/or Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1

Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases, February 2018

29499169

Tatiane Assone, Tatiana M. Kanashiro, Maira P.M. Baldassin, Arthur Paiva, Michel E. Haziot, Jerusa Smid, Augusto Penalva de Oliveira, Luiz Augusto M. Fonseca, Philip J. Norris, Jorge Casseb

Infection with HTLV-1 can be associated with myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) and other inflammatory diseases. Lymphocytes from about half of HTLV-1-infected subjects spontaneously proliferate in vitro, and how this phenomenon relates to symptomatic disease and viral burden is poorly understood. To evaluate T-cell proliferation in vitro among patients co-infected with HTLV-1/HCV/HIV-1. From 610 HTLV-infected patients of the HTLV outpatient clinic from Institute of Infectious Diseases "Emilio Ribas" in São Paulo, 273 agreed to participate: 72 had HAM/TSP (excluded from this analysis) and 201 were asymptomatic, a classification performed during a regular neurological appointment. We selected the subgroup made up only by the 201 asymptomatic subjects to avoid bias by the clinical status as a confounder effect, who had laboratory results of HTLV-1 proviral load and T-cell proliferation assay in our database. They were further grouped according to their serological status in four categories: 121 HTLV-1 asymptomatic mono-infected carriers; 32 HTLV-1/HCV, 29 HTLV-1/HIV-1, and 19 HTLV-1/HIV-1/HCV co-infected patients. Clinical data were obtained from medical records and interviews. DNA HTLV-1 proviral load (PVL) and T-cell proliferation (LPA) assay were performed for all samples. From a total of 273 subjects with HTLV-1, 80 presented co-infections: 29 had HIV-1, 32 had HCV, and 19 had HIV-1 and HCV. Comparing the groups based on their serological status, independently of being asymptomatic carriers, we observed a significant increase of PVL (p<0.001) and LPA (p=0.001). However, when groups were stratified according to their clinical and serological status, there was no significant increase in HTLV-1 PVL and LPA. No significant increase of basal T-cell proliferation among HTLV-1 co-infected was observed. This interaction may be implicated in liver damage, worsening the prognosis of co-infected patients or, on the contrary, inducing a higher spontaneous clearance of HCV infection in HTLV-1 co-infected patients.