ИСТИНА

MF is a slow progressing cutaneous form of adult T-cell leuke- Mia first described in 1800 by Albert. Effected mostly people elder than 50 years of age. Males are two times more likely to develop MF than females and family cases are not exceptional. MF fre- quency was increased all over the world during the last 10-15 years. Etiology is unknown. Virus infection, HTLV-1 in particular, could not be excluded. HTLV-1 is associated with adult T-cell leukemia, tropical spastic paraparesis and likely some autoimmune diseases. HTLV-1 is endemic in several geographical regions, however, case reports were described all over. Several lines of evidences are in favor of only HTLV-1 transcriptional transactivator tax sequences in association with MF and that was shown on patients from endemic or close to endemic regions. Presence of anti- tax antibodies, but not antibodies against structural proteins has been reported in MF patients. In the absence of the virus tax transmission is still obscure. European Russia is not endemic for HTLV-1. To estimate tax frequency and expression among 60 MF patients from Russia (Moscow and Moscow region) we performed PCR/Southern hy- bridization, sequence analysis and RT-PCR. By PCR/Southern hybridization tax related sequences were re- vealed in nearly 30% of MF patients. Sequence analysis demon- strated minor differences in these sequences. Defective HTLV-1 genomes were revealed in two patients. As the other groups, we (using commercial Western blot kit) did not managed to detect antibodies to HTLV-1 structural proteins. RT-PCR analysis of three PCR-positive patients revealed tax transcripts in two of them. No tax sequences were detected in 10 patients with psoriasis and 20 healthy donors. Using differential centrifugation technique we have tried to isolate a putative virus from plasma of three PCR-positive MF patients. We failed to detect any kind of transcripts in a quasi virus pellet. Thus, tax gene transmission seems not to be associated with a virus that might be present in human plasma.