Abstract
The entire nucleotide sequence of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type II (HTLV-II) from a previously described isolate of patient NRA (HTLV-II
NRA) was determined. Clones encoding the 5′ LTR and gag, pol, env and tax/rex open reading frames were subcloned and sequenced on both strands. The provirus consisted of 8957 nucleotides and showed 95.2% homology with the HTLV-II
Mo prototype at the nucleotide level. Less than 5% amino acid variation between HTLV-II
NRA and HTLV-II
Mo was observed for coding regions. Although isolate HTLV-II
NRA had an additional 25 amino acids at the 3′ end of the tax/rex, this region was 96% homologous with the 5′ end of HTLV-II
Mo 3′ LTR. To further investigate HTLV-II variability, a portion of the env gp46 gene derived from 9 HTLV-II infected persons was amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced. Sequenced was obtained for 320 nucleotides corresponding to HTLV-II
Mo position 5291 to 5610. Isolates similar to the HTLV-II
Mo and HTLV-II
NRA prototypes were identified, and sequences were highly conserved.
