Correlation Between Virological Marker And Bcl-Xl In Adult T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma (ATL) Vs Healthy Carriers

HTLV-I is a worldwide distribution retrovirus which north east of Iran especially Mashhad is one ofthe endemic areas. In spite of the healthy carriers are the majority of HTLV-I-infected individualsbut small proportion of infected population developed two progressive diseases: ATL and HAM/T-P.ATLL is a very poor prognosis aggressive T-cell proliferation caused by HTLV-1. BCL-XL belongs toBCL2 family which inhibits apoptosis in cell so over express of this gene may promote theuncontrolled cell proliferation. High TAX, HBZ and proviral load level can be potential HTLV-Imarkers for pushing cell into malignancy; therefore in this study correlation between them andBLC-XL were evaluated. In this study, 38 HTLV-I positive samples including 20 ATL subjects and 18asymptomatic were investigated. mRNA were extracted and convert to CDNA from Peripheral bloodmononuclear cells (PBMCs) then expression of TAX HBZ and BCL-XL investigated by TaqMan qPCR.DNA was execrated from PBMCs and used for proviral load. The analysis of data showed a significantpositive correlation between TAX, HBZ and BCL-XL gene expression ATL and carriers P= (0.000).There is no statically correlation between the proviral load and Bcl-xl entire the population (p=0.961). The present study demonstrated that TAX and HBZ can promote Bcl-xl gene expressionwhich may a causative important role in disrupting cell life cycle then progress the cells intomalignant stage of proliferation. Therefore apoptosis may get interrupted by virus onco proteins. Inspite of rising HTLV-I proviral load in ATLL patients it seems do not have an direct effect on TAX,HBZ and Bcl-xl gene expression.