{"doi":"10.3390/v16111755","title":"Characterization of HTLV-1 Infectious Molecular Clone Isolated from Patient with HAM/TSP and Immortalization of Human Primary T-Cell Lines","abstract":"Human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of lymphoproliferative diseases such as adult T-cell leukemia and T-cell lymphoma (ATL) and a neurodegenerative disease known as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). While several molecular clones of HTLV-1 have been published, all were isolated from samples derived from patients with adult T-cell leukemia. Here, we report the characterization of an HTLV-1 infectious molecular clone isolated from a sample of a patient with HAM/TSP disease. Genetic comparative analyses of the HAM/TSP molecular clone (pBST) revealed unique genetic alterations and specific viral mRNA expression patterns. Interestingly, our clone also harbors characteristics previously published to favor the development of HAM/TSP disease. The molecular clone is capable of infection and immortalization of human primary T cells in vitro. Our studies further demonstrate that the HTLV-1 virus produced from primary T cells transfected with pBST or ACH molecular clones cannot sustain long-term expansion, and cells cease to proliferate after 3–4 months in culture. In contrast, long-term proliferation and immortalization were achieved if the virus was transmitted from dendritic cells to primary T cells, and secondary infection of 729B cells in vitro was demonstrated. In both primary T cells and 729B cells, pBST and ACH were latent, and only hbz viral RNA was detected. This study suggests that HTLV-1 transmission from DC to T cells favors the immortalization of latently infected cells.","journal":"Viruses","year":2024,"id":505978,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.875,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"GENBANK":["AAB39872.1","AAU04893.1","AAU04891.1","AAU04889.1","AAC35405.2","AAA85429.1"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":495409,"name":"Pooja Jain","orcid":"0000-0001-8057-7835","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":484351,"name":"Christophe Nicot","orcid":"0000-0001-5927-2869","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":485520,"name":"Marcia Bellon","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":104,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:50.984927Z","pmid":"39599870","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}