Fig. 3

Detection of HBZ-specific antibodies in the plasma of HTLV-1-infected individuals with different clinical status. Antibodies against HBZ in plasma samples from HTLV-1-infected individuals were detected by ELISA using a recombinant HBZ protein as the coating antigen. Each plasma sample (50 µL of a 1:100 dilution) was examined twice, and the results shown are the mean optical density (OD) of duplicate wells. A positive result was any value higher than the mean OD plus twice the standard deviation (dotted line represents the cut-off value) of the 17 NC plasma samples. Differences between groups were analyzed with the Mann–Whitney U test