Remarkable increase in CD26-positive T cells in patients with human T lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) associated myelopathy. |
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| Authors: | K Shibayama T Nakamura I Kinoshita Y Ueki H Nakao K Eguchi M Tsujihata S Nagataki |
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| Affiliation: | First Department of Internal Medicine, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Japan. |
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| Abstract: | We used two-color flow cytometric analysis to investigate CD26+ (Ta1+) cells in peripheral blood T lymphocytes from patients with human T-lymphotropic virus type-I (HTLV-I)-associated myelopathy (HAM). The percentage of CD26+ cells among CD3+ cells was markedly increased in patients with HAM, compared with anti-HTLV-I seropositive carriers (p < 0.001) and seronegative controls (p < 0.01). Within the subpopulation of T cells, a significantly high percentage of CD26+ cells was detected in both CD4+ and CD8+ cell populations. Furthermore, analysis of HLA-DR+ T cells revealed similar results. In contrast CD4+CD45RA+ cells were significantly decreased in comparison with controls. These results suggest that immunologically activated or memory T cells found in peripheral blood may be etiologically relevant to HAM. |
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