Mitsuaki Yoshida

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.

Involvement of Human Retrovirus in Specific T-Cell Leukemia

Animal retroviruses have provided very useful systems for studies on the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis.(1,2) Information on oncogenes and their cellular counterparts, and their significance in tumor development has been obtained from studies on retroviruses. Moreover, interest in oncogenes is now apparent in other fields of science, including developmental biology.