Abstract
It is known that adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) cells undergo spontaneous apoptosis in vitro as a results of expression of the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) Tax protein. However, the molecular mechanism of the apoptosis remained to be elucidated. We examined the expression of Fas-Ag, Bcl-2 and Tax in ATL cells prior to culture and following culture. ATL cells from some patients showed a increased level of Fas-Ag and a decreased Ievel of Bcl-2 compared to peripheral Iymphocytes from healthy individuals. Culture of ATL cells resulted in apoptosis. However, the apoptosis was confined to cells associated with a high level of Tax and a decreased level of Bcl-2. In addition, we found that apoptosis induced by HTLV-I Tax results in destruction of the HTLV-I genome itself. These results suggested that decreased Bcl-2 may be important in Tax-induced apoptosis.
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