Aberrant overexpression of UCK2 during ATL leukemogenesis. (A-B) Expression of the UCK2 and UCK1 genes in HTLV-1–infected cells and normal T cells was analyzed using GSE55851 data set. HTLV-1–infected T cells (CADM1⁺/CD7 dimly⁺ [yellow], and CADM1⁺/CD7⁻ [red]), and normal T cells (CADM1⁻/CD⁺ [blue]), were isolated from healthy volunteers (normal), asymptomatic carriers (AC), and patients with smoldering (S), chronic (C), and acute (A) ATL. (C-D) Expression of the UCK2 and UCK1 genes by PBMCs from healthy volunteers and patients with ATL was analyzed using GSE33615 data set. Normal CD4⁺ T cells were isolated from healthy volunteers (n = 21). PBMCs were isolated from patients with S (n = 4), C (n = 20), and A (n = 26) ATL. Differences between normal cells and each ATL subtype were assessed using Dunnett test. ∗P < .05. (E) HTLV-1–infected T cells (CADM1⁺ T cells) and their normal counterparts (CADM1⁻/CD7⁺ T cells) were isolated from healthy volunteers (N, n = 3), HTLV-1 carriers (AC, n = 1), and patients with smoldering ATL (S, n = 2), chronic (C, n = 2) and acute ATL (A, n = 2). UCK2 expression was measured by western blotting. (F) UCK2 expression by ATL cell lines and CD3⁺CD4⁺CD7⁺CADM1⁻ T cells (CD4⁺ T cell) from 3 volunteers was compared by western blotting.