Impact of Human T-cell Leukemia Virus-1 and Epstein-Barr Virus Infections on B-cell Lymphoma and Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma Developments

We established HTLV-1/EBV co-infected cell lines from Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma (ATLL) patients, and found that they are derived from germinal center (GC) B-cells or transitional B-cells between GC-B-cells and memory B-cells by using gene expression profiling (GEP) analysis. Expression of CD25 and TSLC1, which are diagnostic markers of ATLL cells, were identified in the ATLL-derived B-cell lines as discriminators of EBV-imortalized cell lines, indicating that HTLV-1 infection leads to express CD25 and TSLC1. The three cell lines LMY3B, OATL9 and LHM115 represent three independent B cell lines established by isolating peripheral blood from three different HTLV-1+ patients. Primary naïve, GC and memory B-cells were selected to identify the derivation of ATLL-derived B-cell lines, and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma cell lines and EBV-immortalized cell lines were used to characterize tumorigenicity of ATLL-derived B-cell lines.