Functional Role of the Htlv-1 V12l Protein

摘要

Human T-cell leukemia/lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiologic agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) (23, 26, 59, 73 as well as a variety of immune-mediated disorders including HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) {24, 54, 61). In addition to the structural and enzymatic genes gag, pol, and env, HTLV-1 carries a unique region at the 3' end of the genome that was designated pX (64) because the coding potential of the open reading frame (ORF) was unknown at the time (Fig. 1). Later, however, it was appreciated that the four ORF within the pX region encode the regulatory proteins Rex and Tax (ORF III and IV, respectively) (10, 25, 28, 65). ORF I and II encode additional proteins (pl2, p30n, and pl3n) whose function is under investigation (6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 27, 35, 36, 38, 39, 74, 75).