a3bd1ab6-ef2c-47f4-b4be-1f0ccb8c915c
title
Serum concentration and genetic polymorphism in the 5'-untraslated region of  VEGF  is not associated with susceptibility to HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) in HTLV-I infected individuals.
600342d9-30ee-41db-80b0-3465aedaa24a
abstract
HTLV-I- associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) is one outcome of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection. It remains unknown why the majority of infected people remain healthy whereas only approximately 2-3% of infected individuals develop the disease. Recently, it has been reported that increased plasma concentrations of  VEGF  were significantly related to high ATL cell infiltration, and the viral transactivator Tax activates the  VEGF  promoter, linking the induction of angiogenesis to viral gene expression. To investigate whether  VEGF  promoter  -634C/G  single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and serum concentration of  VEGF  are associated with the development of HAM/TSP, we studied a group of 202 HAM/TSP patients, 202 asymptomatic HTLV-I seropositive carriers (HCs) and 108 seronegative healthy controls (NCs) in Kagoshima, Japan by using PCR-RFLP analysis. The serum concentration of  VEGF  was also compared among patients with HAM/TSP, ATL, HCs as well as with NCs. Our results indicate that both  VEGF  gene polymorphism and serum  VEGF  levels are not specifically associated with the risk of HAM/TSP in our cohort.