Evaluation of lipid profile and Tax mRNA expression in HTLV-1-infected patients with cardiovascular disease

Atherosclerosis is one of the most common causes of mortality in developed and developing countries, and chronic inflammation is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis. The study was aimed to investigate the effect of human lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection on the progression of atherosclerosis in the HTLV-1 endemic area. Of 50 patients in 4 groups including 14 coronary artery disease+HTLV-1+ patients, 8 CAD-HTLV-1+, 17 CAD+HTLV-1- subjects and 11 healthy controls (CAD-HTLV-1-), blood specimens were obtained. Then, Tax gene expression was evaluated via real-time PCR, TaqMan method. Furthermore, lipid factors such as cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL and HDL were measured as common risk factors of coronary artery disease. The HDL levels in CAD+HTLV-1+ group was significantly lower than the CAD-HTLV-1+ group (p=0.04). Total cholesterol in CAD+HTLV-1+ group was higher than CAD+HTLV-1- and CAD-HTLV-1- groups (p=0.001 and p=0.001). Also, total cholesterol in CAD-HTLV-1+ group was higher than CAD+HTLV-1- and healthy groups (p=0.001 and p=0.002). The LDL level in CAD+HTLV-1+ group was significantly higher than CAD+HTLV-1- group (p=0.001). Moreover, LDL level in CAD-HTLV-1+ group was higher than CAD+HTLV-1- group (p=0.01). The HTLV-1 can alter the lipid profiles. Association between HDL, LDL, cholesterol and Tax showed that Tax as main virulence factor of virus by dysregulation of cytokines production, increasing of cholesterol, LDL and decreasing of HDL can facilitate the plaque formation in HTLV-1-infected patients.