Rheumatic manifestation of human leukemia virus infection

Rheumatic disorders associated with retroviruses are described in this article. A recent study of human T-cell leukemia virus type-I (HTLV-I) revealed that it appeared to be associated with the pathogenesis of several immune disorders such as myelopathy, broncho-pneumopathy, Sjogren's syndrome, and arthropathy. HTLV-I-associated arthropathy (HAAP) shows remarkable synovial proliferation with nuclear convoluted T-cell infiltration in both synovium and synovial fluid. Synovial cells obtained from HAAP patient-integrated HTLV-I proviral DNA and also expressed mRNA for HTLV-1 tax gene; moreover, HTLV-1 integrated synovial cell clones expressed a high level of mRNA for several oncogene and growth factors compared with HTLV-I non-integrated clones. These findings suggest that HTLV-I is the first exogenous retrovirus that contributes to synovial proliferation with immune disorders in humans.