TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE TAKAHASHI TSUJI'S LABORATORY

The mysteries of the onset of adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma pathogenesis

Adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) is a hematological malignancy and is caused by human T cell leukemia virus type I infection (HTLV-I). This disease demonstrated poor prognosis and no effective treatment has been established.

ATLL is generally categorized into four groups such as acute, chronic, smoldering and lymphoma-type. Malignant T cells in acute-type ATLL patients show nuclear polymorphisms, and these typical multilobulated appearances (‘‘flower-like’’ nuclei) have been shown to be a specific morphological feature of malignant T cells (left figure). These polymorphisms are an important clinical diagnostic marker of this disease. However, it is still unknown why ATLL occurs rarely in HTLV-I carriers and the molecular mechanisms underlying the manifestation of nuclear polymorphisms have yet to be fully elucidated.

We have been studying the molecular mechanisms of ATLL type multilobulated nucleus formation to clarify why onset of ATLL is associated with the specific nucleus phenotype.