Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma is an aggressive malignancy associated with infection by the human T-lymphotropic virus type-I (HTLV-I). We now demonstrate that p53 expression is elevated in the HTLV-I-transformed T-lymphocyte lines C81, MT-2, MT-4 and HUT 102. In pulse-chase experiments, the p53 protein demonstrated a prolonged half-life of 2 to 8 h in HTLV-I-transformed cells compared with 0.5 to 1.0 h for wild-type p53 in primary human and murine fibroblasts, or human peripheral blood lymphocytes. In cell lines C81 and HUT 102, which exhibited the longest p53 protein half-life, the wild-type-related PAb1620 epitope was detected at reduced levels. The PAb240 mutant-related p53 epitope was not detected in any of the transformed cell lines. By direct sequence analysis of RT-PCR products, the entire p53 cDNA coding sequence was determined to be wild-type in all four cell lines. Stabilization of wild-type p53 may represent its functional inactivation and contribute to lymphocyte transformation by HTLV-I.