Functional impairment of Tax-specific but not cytomegalovirus-specific CD8+ T lymphocytes in a minor population of asymptomatic human T-cell leukemia virus type 1-carriers

Abstract

These findings indicated that Tax-specific CD8+ T-cells were scarce and dysfunctional not only in ATL patients but also in a limited AC population, and that the dysfunction was selective for HTLV-1-specifc CD8+ T-cells in early stages.