HTLV and immunosuppression.

There is increasing evidence for the link between members of the human T-lymphotropic virus family and clinically important disease. We used indirect membrane immunofluorescence (IMI) to screen patient and control sera for antibodies to human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV) specific cell membrane antigens (HTLV-MA) of HTLV-I and HTLV-III. Representative sera were screened for antibodies to specific HTLV-encoded proteins using radioimmunoprecipitation (RIP) with SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).