How Does HTLV-1 Persist in the Host?
1Department of Infectious Disease, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Abstract:
HTLV-1 resists clearance from its host by the strong HTLV-1-specific immune response and by drugs. The tactics and strategies by which it does so illustrate the exquisite adaptation to the host that HTLV-1 has made in its tens of thousands of years of stable co-existence with humans. This adaptation contrasts strongly with the biology of HIV-1, which has established widespread infection in humans for only around a century. The mode of persistence of HTLV-1 makes it less pathogenic than HIV-1, despite causing serious malignant and inflammatory diseases in a proportion of people with the virus, but at the same time makes HTLV-1 harder to treat and eradicate. In this article I outline the different means that HTLV-1 has evolved to persist in the host.
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