Adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) is caused by human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) and remains incurable. The highest endemic area of HTLV-1 carriers in Japan is located in Okinawa, and novel treatments are urgently needed in this area. We extracted fucoidan, a sulfated polysaccharide, from the brown seaweed Cladosiphon okamuranus Tokida cultivated in Okinawa, Japan and examined its tumor-sup...

One of the hallmarks of cancer, global gene expression alteration, is closely associated with the development and malignant characteristics associated with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) as well as other cancers. Here, we show that aberrant overexpression of the Ellis Van Creveld (EVC) family is responsible for cellular Hedgehog (HH) activation, which provides the pro-survival ability of ATL cells...

Interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptor/Tac antigen is abnormally expressed on cells of patients with adult T cell leukemia (ATL) caused by infection with human T lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I). Twenty-five patients with ATL were examined to determine whether their leukemic cells continued to show IL-2-dependent proliferation. In 21 patients, the in vitro proliferation of HTLV-I-infected nonleukemic ...

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the causal agent of a neoplastic disease of CD4+ T cells, adult T-cell leukemia (ATL), and inflammatory diseases including HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis, dermatitis, and inflammatory lung diseases. ATL cells, which constitutively express CD25, resemble CD25+CD4+ regulatory T cells (T(reg)). Approximately 60% of ATL cases...

UNLABELLED Infection with human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is associated with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and tropical spastic paraparesis. Type I interferons (IFNs) are key effectors of the innate antiviral response, and IFN-α combined with the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor zidovudine is considered the standard first-line therapy for ATL. HTLV-1 oncoprotein Tax is known...

Serum concentrations of soluble interleukin 2 receptors (sIL 2R) were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in 30 patients with adult T cell leukemia (ATL), in 9 patients with other hematopoietic malignancies, and in 17 asymptomatic individuals seropositive for human T cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). Sixty HTLV-I seronegative, age-matched controls showed a normal range o...

Chemokines and chemokine receptors play important roles in migration and tissue localization of various lymphocyte subsets. Here, we report the highly frequent expression of CCR4 in adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1)-immortalized T cells. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that ATL and HTLV-1-immortalized T-cell lines consistently expressed CCR4. Inducibl...

Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) was first described in 1977 as a distinct clinico‐ pathological entity with a suspected viral etiology. Subsequently, a RNA retrovirus, hu‐ man T-cell leukemia /lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) was isolated as a carcinogenic pathogens [1]. HTLV-1 infects approximately 15 to 20 million people worldwide, with endemic areas in Japan, the Caribbean, and Africa...

Although human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is the etiologic agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL), the role of viral gene expression in the progression to and maintenance of the leukemic state in vivo is unclear because of the inability of most previous studies to readily detect HTLV-I RNA in infected individuals. By using the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactio...

CD26/dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV), a T-cell-activation antigen, is a 110-kD type II surface glycoprotein expressed on various types of normal cells. CD26/DPPIV is considered a multifunction housekeeping protein. Malignant cells often show altered CD26/DPPIV expression or no CD26/DPPIV expression, thus suggesting a useful marker for assessing some T-cell malignancies. In this study, cell surf...