Detection of human T‐Cell lymphotropic virus Type‐I provirus DNA by in vitro enzymatic amplification

Abstract For the detection of the HTLV‐I provirus genomic DNA, we applied the polymerase‐chain‐reaction (PCR) dot‐blot assay system developed by Saiki et al. (14). DNA sequences coding the p24 in the gag region were chosen as targets to be amplified. We checked genomic DNAs extracted from peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of five adult T‐cell leukemia patients, one HTLV‐I‐associated myelopathy (HAM) patient, four asymptomatic carriers, and five normal individuals as negative controls. Although carriers sometimes showed low antibody titers in the particle‐agglutination test and revealed faint banding patterns in Western‐blot analysis, the PCR dot‐blot assay system can clearly detect the HTLV‐I provirus DNA. Furthermore, all data obtained with the specimens tested were confirmed by the PCR oligomer‐restriction (OR) procedure. The PCR dot‐blot assay system is simple and rapid for the detection of the target DNA sequence, although it does not provide useful additional information, as does the Southern‐blot analysis. Therefore, it can be considered to be a powerful analytical system for the confirmation of HTLV‐I infections.