Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type I

Abstract

HTLV-I was isolated after it became possible to grow human T-cells in vitro with the help of IL-2 (Morgan et al 1976; Ruscetti et al. 1977). Normal human lymphocytes that are initially stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (PHA) can be cultured for more than 1 month in the presence of IL-2. Malignant T-cells from patients with mature T-cell malignancies can be cultured using the same procedure, but without initial PHA activation. Several T-cell lines have been established from patients with mature T-cell lymphomas involving the skin (Poiesz et al. 1980a). Some of them produced particulate reverse transcriptase and released retroviral particles: the first human retroviruses had been discovered (Poiesz et al. 1980b, 1981).