Retrovirology highlights a quarter century of HTLV-I research

Abstract

In 1977, Takatsuki and co-workers described in Japan a human malignant disease termed adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). Three years later, in 1980, Gallo and colleagues reported the identification of the first human retrovirus, human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I), in a patient with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. This month, Retrovirology commemorates these two land mark findings by publishing separate personal recollections by Takatsuki and Gallo respectively on the discovery of ATL and HTLV.

Figure 1

Panels A, B, and C show the three accepted ways by which a retrovirus may transform cells: capture of a c-onc and over-expression of v-onc by the provirus (A); promoter insertion upstream of a growth controlling cellular gene (B); and enhancer insertions either upstream or downstream of growth controlling cellular genes (C). Panel D shows the stepwise ways in which HTLV-I Tax oncoprotein may transform cells by i) inactivating checkpoints to induce tolerance of damaged DNA, and ii) permitting the accumulation of unrepaired DNA lesions which ultimately convert a normal cell to a transformed cell.