Takafumi Shichijo, Jun-Ichirou Yasunaga, Kei Sato, Kisato Nosaka, Kosuke Toyoda, Miho Watanabe, Wenyi Zhang, Yoshio Koyanagi, Edward L Murphy, Roberta L Bruhn, Ki-Ryang Koh, Hirofumi Akari, Terumasa Ikeda, Reuben S Harris, Patrick L Green, Masao Matsuoka
Human retroviruses are derived from simian ones through cross-species transmission. These retroviruses are associated with little pathogenicity in their natural hosts, but in humans, HIV causes AIDS, and human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) induces adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma (ATL). We analyzed the proviral sequences of HTLV-1, HTLV-2, and simian T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (STLV-1) from Japanese macaques ( Macaca fuscata ) and found that APOBEC3G (A3G) frequently generates G-to-A mutations in the HTLV-1 provirus, whereas such mutations are rare in the HTLV-2 and STLV-1 proviruses...
March 26, 2024: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America