Increased adherence of T cells to human endothelial cells in patients with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I-associated myelopathy
K. Ichinose, T. Nakamura, A. Kawakami, K. Eguchi, K. Nagasato, K. Shibayama, M. Tsujihata and S. Nagataki
First Department of Internal Medicine, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Japan.
We investigated the adherence of T cells to human umbilical vein
endothelial cells in seven patients with human T-lymphotropic virus type I
(HTLV-I)-associated myelopathy. The adherence of T cells to endothelial
cells increased significantly in all the patients with HTLV-I-associated
myelopathy when compared with the adherence in the seronegative controls
(1.3- to 2.8-fold) and compared with the adherence in the
anti-HTLV-I-seropositive non-HTLV-I-associated myelopathy carriers (1.4- to
2.8-fold). Prior treatment of the endothelial cell monolayer with
recombinant interferon gamma (50 IU/mL) enhanced the T cell-endothelial
cell adhesion in both the controls and patients with HTLV-I-associated
myelopathy. However, values after prior treatment in the patients with
HTLV-I-associated myelopathy were significantly higher than those in
seronegative controls and carriers. The results suggest that the
significantly increased T cell-endothelial cell adherence may be related to
the initial stages of lymphocyte migration from the blood to the central
nervous system in patients with HTLV-I-associated myelopathy.
