Molecular approach to human leukemia: isolation and characterization of the first human retrovirus HTLV-1 and its impact on tumorigenesis in adult T-cell leukemia.
Molecular biology of mouse and chicken retroviruses had identified oncogenes and provided a revolutionary concept in understanding of cancers. A human retrovirus was established during 1980-1982 in linkage with a unique human leukemia, concurrently in Japan and USA. This review covers our efforts on the discovery of new retrovirus, Human T-cell Leukemia Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1), first introducing to a new class of retroviruses with a unique regulatory factors, Tax and Rex. Then it is followed by analyses of molecular interaction of the vial Tax with cellular machineries involved in the pathogenesis of Adult T-cell Leukemia (ATL). And then a probable mechanism of pathogenesis of ATL is proposed including recent findings on HBZ after our efforts.
Yoshida
Mitsuaki
M
Cancer Chemotherapy Center, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo, Japan. yoshimx@jfcr.or.jp
D000328:Adult; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D015459:Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology*; D014779:Virus Replication