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Journal of Virology, January 2003, p. 782-789, Vol. 77, No. 1
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.1.782-789.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Divergent Simian T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type 3 (STLV-3) in Wild-Caught Papio hamadryas papio from Senegal: Widespread Distribution of STLV-3 in Africa

Laurent Meertens and Antoine Gessain*

Unité d'Epidémiologie et Physiopathologie des Virus Oncogènes, Département Ecosystèmes et Epidémiologie des Maladies Infectieuses, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France

Received 11 June 2002/ Accepted 27 September 2002

Among eight samples obtained from a French primatology research center, six adult guinea baboons (Papio hamadryas papio), caught in the wild in Senegal, had a peculiar human T-cell leukemia virus type 2 (HTLV-2)-like Western blot seroreactivity (p24+, GD21+, K55+/-). Partial sequence analyses of the tax genes (433 bp) indicated that these baboons were infected by a novel divergent simian T-cell lymphotropic virus (STLV). Analyses of the complete proviral sequence (8,892 bp) for one of these strains (STLV-3/PPA-F3) indicate that this STLV was highly divergent from the HTLV-1 (61.6% of nucleotide similarity), HTLV-2 (61.2%), or STLV-2 (60.6%) prototype. It was, however, much more closely related to the few other known STLV-3 strains, exhibiting 87 and 89% of nucleotide similarity with STLV-3/PHA-PH969 (formerly PTLV-L/PH969) and STLV-3/CTO-604, respectively. The STLV-3/PPA-F3 sequence possesses the major HTLV or STLV open reading frames corresponding to the structural, enzymatic, and regulatory proteins. However, its long terminal repeat comprises only two 21-bp repeats. In all phylogenetic analyses, STLV-3/PPA-F3 clustered together in a highly supported single clade with the other known strains of STLV-3, indicating an independent evolution from primate T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (PTLV-1) and PTLV-2. The finding of a new strain of STLV-3 in a West African monkey (Guinea baboon) greatly enlarges the geographical distribution and the host range of species infected by this PTLV type in the African continent. The recent discovery of several different STLV-3 strains in many different African monkey species, often in contact with humans, strongly suggests potential interspecies transmission events, as it was described for STLV-1, between nonhuman primates but also to humans.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Unité d'Epidémiologie et Physiopathologie des Virus Oncogènes, Département Ecosystèmes et Epidémiologie des Maladies Infectieuses, BÂtiment Lwoff, Institut Pasteur, 25-28 rue du Dr. Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. Phone: 33 (0)1 45 68 89 37. Fax: 33 (0)1 40 61 34 65. E-mail: agessain{at}pasteur.fr.

Journal of Virology, January 2003, p. 782-789, Vol. 77, No. 1
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.1.782-789.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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