Analysis of Anti-Tax Antibody of HTLV-I Carriers in an Endemic Area in Japan

Sera from 1197 adult residents in Miyazaki district, an area in Japan endemic for human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I), were tested for anti-Tax antibody by the recombinant Tax (r-Tax) Western blot assay. Among HTLV-I-seropositive individuals, including 21.5% of 484 males and 28.6% of 713 females, the prevalence of anti-Tax antibody were 59.6% and 58.3% respectively, with no apparent difference in age. There was a significant 6-fold difference in the prevalence of anti-Tax among seropositive subjects with titer > or = 1:8192 (84.6%) compared with those with the lowest titer of 1:16 (14.3%), suggesting the increased production of antibodies to viral structural proteins in anti-Tax-positive individuals. Furthermore, among those anti-Tax-positive subjects, the intensity of serum reactivity to r-Tax protein in the high antibody titer (1:1024 or higher) group was significantly stronger than that in the lower antibody titer (1:512 or lower) group. We also found that 1.6% (14/889) of individuals without detectable levels of HTLV-I antibody had anti-Tax antibody. HTLV-I pro-viral DNA signals could not be detected in DNA sample from the lymphocytes of these individuals by the nested polymerase chain reaction method. Further evaluation is needed to clarify the significance of an anti-Tax-only status population in which HTLV-I is endemic.