No Association between Antibodies to HTLV-1 and Polymyositis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and SLE

Abstract

The discovery of the first human retroviruses (1,2) has opened up a new way of thinking about their role in human diseases. Human retroviruses can affect T lymphocytes in different ways: (i) they can transform (1) as well as (ii) induce cytolysis (2) and they can also act on lymphocytes in more subtle ways, by changing their functions (3). Furthermore, (iv) these agents exhibit neurotrophism (4). All these observations have stimulated studies on the relationships between retroviruses and various diseases of unknown etiology (5, 6, 7). The present study was undertaken to establish whether an infection with human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) could be revealed by the presence of antiviral antibodies in the serum of patients with the autoimmune diseases systemic lupus erythe-matosus (SLE), polymyositis and rheumatoid arthritis.