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The study of tumor viruses paves the way for understanding the mechanisms of virus pathogenesis, including those involved in establishing infection and dissemination in the host tumor affecting immune-compromised patients. The processes ranging from viral infection to progressing malignancy are slow and usually insufficient for establishment of transformed cells that develop cancer in only a minority of infected subjects. Therefore, viral infection is usually not the only cause of cancer, and further environmental and host factors, may be implicated. HTLV-I, in particular, is considered as an oncovirus cause of lymphoproliferative disease such as adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and disturbs the immune responses which results in HTLV-I associated meylopathy/tropical spastic parapresis (HAM/TSP). HTLV-I infection causes ATL in a small proportion of infected subjects (2-5%) following a prolonged incubation period (15-30 years) despite a strong adaptive immune response against the virus. Overall, these conditions offer a prospect to study the molecular basis of tumorgenicity in mammalian cells. In this review, the oncogencity of HTLV-I is being considered as an oncovirus in context of ATL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]