FIGURE 2.

A hypothetical model of developmental pathway in HTLV-1-associated diseases [adapted from Waddington (1957)]. The height of the walls between the valleys (or canals) is determined by several molecular events. The first HTLV-1 infection and the accompanied epigenetic alterations change the cell fate. The permissive state induced by HTLV-1-infection allows following stochastic perturbations such as genetic mutations and dysregulation of the signaling pathways and clonal selection, paralleled by a decrease in transcriptional noise, and the stabilization of cell states (deepening of the valleys).