Although HAM/TSP patients harbor a high HTLV-1 proviral load with elevated Tax expression, current therapies for HAM/TSP patients mainly focus on treating clinical symptoms with anti-inflammatory corticosteroids, and inducing viral gene expression to increase the susceptibility of infected cells to immune responses by treatment with valproate, a histone deacetylase inhibitor75,76. This evidence concerns the gene CNTN2 and tropical spastic paraparesis.