Analysis of HTLV-I in Hodgkin's Disease

Both Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and the human T-cell leukemia virus I (HTLV-I) have been implicated in the generation of human lymphoproliferative disorders such as Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease (HD) and acute T-cell leukemia (ATL). In Hodgkin's disease EBV has been recently detected in Hodgkin's and Sternberg-Reed cells in about 20% of the cases. We analysed if HTLV-I is also involved in Hodgkin's disease by using Northern Blot analysis and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In our experiments we did not detect HTLV-I specific sequences in HD derived cell lines or in primary specimens.