Active production of anti-human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) IgM antibody in HTLV-I-associated myelopathy

Abstract We investigated the presence of anti-human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) IgM in sera and cerebrospinal fluid from patients with HTLV-I-associated myelopathy (HAM) by Western blot analysis. Analyses of 36 serum samples revealed that most patients (31/36; 86.1%) had anti-HTLV-I IgM, whereas only four of 23 (17.4%) HTLV-I carriers had it. In studies of cerebrospinal fluid, anti-HTLV-I IgM was detected in 24 of 36 (66.7%) HAM patients, whereas none was detected in nine HTLV-I carriers. The differences were statistically significant ( p