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Human Retroviruses

Dalgleish, Angus George; (1990) Human Retroviruses. Doctoral thesis (M.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

Retroviruses have been associated with numerous disease states in animals since the turn of the century. Until recently human retroviruses had remained elusive. With the discovery of the human T-cell leukaemia virus (HTLV-I) and the establishment of its aetiological role in the adult T-cell leukaemia-lymphoma syndrome, a variety of new approaches to the isolation of human viruses from other diseases was possible. This thesis describes studies on the host cell range of HTLV-I as well as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) isolates obtained from AIDS and AIDS related patients. Whereas the receptor for HTLV-I remains elusive, adoption of the same techniques to HIV showed that the T4 (CD4) molecule behaved as the HIV receptor. Studies are described to confirm this observation whereby the cloned TA gene was transfected into a variety of cell lines resulting in human cells being rendered infectable with HIV. Further studies show that only a part of T4 is required for infection and that this is best defined by the Leu 3a epitope. Whereas poor and variable neutralization of different HIV isolates was found, all known isolates studied so far appear to use T4 as their receptor. This has obvious implications for treatment and vaccine development in AIDS. Detailed serology of HIV both in London and Africa is described including the linking of epidemic kaposis sarcoma and slim disease with HIV infection. Original HIV isolations from slim disease, AIDS and hypogammaglobulinaemia are described in detail. An extensive search of other diseases revealed tantalizing evidence of new viruses in a lymphoma and a sarcoidosis patient and the implications for these and other diseases is discussed in depth.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: M.D
Title: Human Retroviruses
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Thesis digitised by ProQuest.
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10123361
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