Editorial to the Research Topic "Comparative studies between HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 function and pathobiology".

Umberto Bertazzoni

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00792

Abstract

Editorial to the Research Topic "Comparative studies between HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 function and pathobiology".

Highlights

Human T-cell leukemia viruses type 1 and 2 (HTLV-1 and HTLV2) share a common genetic organization, expression strategy and ability to infect and immortalize T-cells in vitro; HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 are strikingly different in terms of clinical impact
Emphasis was placed on the comparison of mRNA expression (Cavallari et al, 2013), the genetic organization and expression patterns (Ciminale et al, 2014), the structural and functional properties of HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 Tax proteins (Forlani et al, 2013; Ren and Cheng, 2013; Romanelli et al, 2013; Shirinian et al, 2013), the role of accessory proteins and antisense proteins in viral pathogenesis (Anupam et al, 2013; Barbeau et al, 2013), and the mechanisms of HIV-1/HTLV-1 and HIV-1/HTLV-2 co-infections (Pilotti et al, 2013)
The fine tuning of expression of HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 (Cavallari et al, 2013) was focused on the X region that codes for the regulatory and accessory proteins in partially overlapping ORFs. Expression of such compact genomes is accomplished by a combination of ribosomal frameshifting, alternative splicing and polycistronic translation as well as production of negative-strand transcripts that code for the HBZ and APH-2 proteins

Summary

Introduction

Human T-cell leukemia viruses type 1 and 2 (HTLV-1 and HTLV2) share a common genetic organization, expression strategy and ability to infect and immortalize T-cells in vitro; HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 are strikingly different in terms of clinical impact. The articles contributed in this Research Topic are covering all the different aspects that characterize HTLV-1 and HTLV-2, by highlighting differences in their biology that might provide clues to their distinct pathogenic properties.

Results

Conclusion