Abstract
The June 2011 15th International Conference on Human Retrovirology: HTLV and Related Viruses marks approximately 30 years since the discovery of HTLV-1. As anticipated, a large number of abstracts were submitted and presented by scientists, new and old to the field of retrovirology, from all five continents. The aim of this review is to distribute the scientific highlights of the presentations as analysed and represented by experts in specific fields of epidemiology, clinical research, immunology, animal models, molecular and cellular biology, and virology.
Highlights
The biannual Conference on Human Retrovirology: HTLV and Related Viruses, where 325 delegated from 17 countries gathered, was held in Leuven, Belgium in June 2011
Treatments for HAM/TSP Gotuzzo et al observed that routine treatment of patients with rapidly progressive HAM/TSP (< 2 years onset) with oral prednisolone together with lamivudine +/- zidovudine for 12 months led to a significant decrease in human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) proviral load (pVL) in 7/11 patients (p = 0.01) and an insignificant increase in 4/11 patients (p = 0.06) at the 7 months follow up [20]
A target of mir-31 is NIK, a kinase that is involved in NF-B activation [70]. These results suggest that (i) both HTLV-1 Tax ubiquitination and SUMOylation are important for the activation of the NF-B pathway, (ii) several DUBs are directly or indirectly involved in the regulation of this process, (iii) HTLV-2 Tax does not function as its HTLV-1 counterpart, and (iv) in adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) cells, the NF-B pathway is possibly activated through the down-regulation of cellular miRNAs
Summary
The biannual Conference on Human Retrovirology: HTLV and Related Viruses, where 325 delegated from 17 countries gathered, was held in Leuven, Belgium in June 2011. Knox et al showed that sera containing complement from CFS patients and matched controls both inactivated XMRV and MLV in vitro, restricting infection of human cells with these viruses, suggesting that sustained infection in humans is highly unlikely [125] They reported evidence of contamination of mouse monoclonal antibodies used in hot start PCR enzymes and cell sorting/staining. Qiu et al presented data showing cross-reactivity of sera from HTLV-1-infected persons with a conserved peptide region in the XMRV p15E envelope surface protein They reported an absence of reactivity in a large number of US blood donors and HIV-1-infected Africans using well-validated assays, suggesting that previous sero-reactive results obtained by others may be due to cross-reactivity or non-specific binding using incompletely validated tests [128]. Population-based and expanded molecular epidemiologic studies will determine how widespread these viruses are and determine their natural history in their non-human and human primate hosts
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