Although parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHRP) is produced by adult T cell leukemia (ATL) cells and causes hypercalcemia in ATL patients, very little is known about the regulation of PTHRP gene expression in the leukemic cells.
These results suggest that the transcription of the human PTHRP gene is enhanced through a cAMP-dependent pathway by PGE1 and that PGE1, as well as interleukin 2, plays an important role in the overexpression of the human PTHRP gene in HTLV-I-infected T cells leading to the development of hypercalcemia in ATL patients.