Polymerase activity in lymphocyte culture supernatants from patients with Kawasaki disease

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute vasculitis of infancy and early childhood characterized by high fever, rash, mucositis, lymphadenopathy and coronary artery damage. Large epidemics have been described in Japan and the United States and the number of cases reported annually is steadily increasing. The aetiology of KD is unknown. During the acute phase of the disease marked immunologic alterations occur including generalized T-cell lymphocytopenia, activation of circulating T4+ helper T cells, decreased numbers of T8+ suppressor T cells and marked B-cell activation. We postulated that a lymphotropic virus with affinity for endothelial and lymphoid cells might explain the vasculitis and immunological abnormalities in KD. We report here our study of the particulate fraction from culture supernatants of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) for evidence of retrovirus-associated reverse transcriptase (RT) activity. Activity was found in the supernatants from KD patients but not control cultures. This RT activity was transmitted to an established T-cell line (HUT-78) and thus may be due to an exogenous agent infecting KD lymphocytes.