IMR Press / FBL / Volume 14 / Issue 10 / DOI: 10.2741/3502

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Clonal expansion of HTLV-1 infected cells depends on the CD4 versus CD8 phenotype
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1 Oncovirology and Biotherapy, FRE CNRS 3011 Lyon I University, Leon Berard Center, Lyon France
2 Hematology department, Edouard Herriot University Hospital, Lyon, France
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2009, 14(10), 3935–3941; https://doi.org/10.2741/3502
Published: 1 January 2009
Abstract

As other deltaretroviruses HTLV-1 replication in vivo includes a first short step of reverse transcription that is followed by the persistent clonal expansion of infected cells. In vivo these cells include the CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes yet the virus induces adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) that is regularly of the CD4+ phenotype. Cloned infected cells from individuals without malignancy possess a dramatic increase in spontaneous proliferation, which predominated with CD8+ lymphocytes and depends on the amount of tax mRNA. In fact, the clonal expansion of HTLV-1 positive CD8+ and CD4+ lymphocytes relies on two distinct mechanisms: infection prevented cell death in the former whereas recruiting the latter into the cell cycle. Furthermore infected tax-expressing CD4+ lymphocytes cumulate cellular defects characteristic of genetic instability. Therefore, HTLV-1 infection establishes a preleukemic phenotype that is restricted to CD4+ infected clones. Investigating the mechanisms underlying apoptosis, cell cycling and DNA repair in cloned cells from naturally infected individuals will permit to deciphering the molecular pathogenesis of HTLV-1 infection.

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