Mice from a transgenic mouse strain expressing the TCL1 gene under the thymocyte specific lck promoter developed a mature T cell leukemia late in life, thereby demonstrating that over-expression of TCL1 induces the neoplastic transformation of T cells.
Phenotypic changes induced by interleukin-2 (IL-2) and IL-3 in an immature T-lymphocytic leukemia are associated with regulated expression of IL-2 receptor beta chain and of protein tyrosine kinases LCK and LYN.
These data presented the possibility that lck gene product may be one of the intervening molecules which transduce the signal from the IL-2R into the cell interior, and play an important role in the pathophysiology of adult T cell leukemia, especially in the transition of these leukemias from the IL-2-dependent stage to IL-2-independent one for their growth.
To evaluate the role of the human T-cell-specific tyrosine kinase lck (YT16), we measured the levels of lck expression in thymocytes, peripheral T-cells, and leukemia T-cell lines which are arrested at different stages of thymic differentiation.