Interrelation between Morpho-immunological Phenotype and Presence of T-lymphotropic Retroviral Genome in DNA of Primate Peripheral T-cell Malignant Iymphoma

Eight STLV-1 seropositive baboons (P. hamadryas), which died of periph-eral T-cell malignant non-Hodgkin\u27s lymphomas (T-NHL), were investigated for the presence of STLV-1 provirus in tumour cell DNA. Biopsied lymph nodes and peripheral blood lymphocytes of 6 healthy STLV-1 carriers P. hamadryas of isolated stock were used as immunological and molecular biological controls. Lymphomas of different morphologic (lymphocytic, prolymphocytic, immunoblas-tic) and immunologic (CD4+ ; CD8+ ; CD4+ ; CD8+ ; CD4+/CD8+) phenotypes with and without tumour cell pleomorphism were selected for analy-sis. STLV-1Ph provirus was discovered in tumour cell DNA of all sick animals investigated. Comparative analysis between sequenced fragments of the env and tax genes of STLV-1 from sick lymphomatous animals (STLV-1PhL) and STLV-1 from healthy animals (STLV-1PhN) of forest controls, has shown different level of homology with each other (79.9% on the env, and 98.06% on the tax) and also with HTLV-1 (82.4, 95.6%, and 84.68, 84.13% respectively). It can be supposed that revealed genetic differences between STLV-1PhL (SuTLV-1) and STLV-1PhN and their different degree of homology to HTLV-1 (ATK.) perhaps reflected the oncogenic ability of STLV-1PhL (SuTLV-1) in comnarison with non-oncogenic STLV-1PhN