Abstract
Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-I) is the etiologic agent of two main diseases, HTLV-associated myelopathy (HAM) and adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). This human oncogenic retrovirus infects between 10 and 20 million worldwide, with more than 1 million carriers living in Brazil. Several mechanisms lead to the progression of the HTLV-1-associated disease, the first being the oncoge…