For thousands of years, tea has been the most widely consumed beverage in the world after water. Historically, tea has been credited with various beneficial health effects, including medicinal efficacy in the prevention and treatment of numerous diseases. Thus, longevity and good health have often been associated with the habit of drinking tea (1). Four major polyphenolic catechins are found in green tea and include (Ϫ)-epicatechin (EC), 3 (Ϫ)-epicatechin 3-gallate (ECG), (Ϫ)-epigallocatechin (EGC), and (Ϫ)-epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG). A cup of green tea may contain 100 -200 mg of EGCG (2). Several investigators have reported that green tea exerts cancer preventive activity at a variety of organ sites, including skin, lung, oral cavity, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon, pancreas, and mammary gland (1, 3, 4). However, the mechanisms explaining the cancer preventive activity of tea and tea polyphenols are still not clearly understood.The -associated 70-kDa protein (ZAP-70) is a Syk (spleen tyrosine kinase) family tyrosine kinase, which is associated with the subunit of the T cell receptor (TCR). The ZAP-70 protein is primarily expressed in T cells and natural killer cells and plays an essential role in signaling through the T cell antigen receptor (5). The TCRs are associated with tyrosine phosphorylation of multiple proteins resulting in activation of various signaling pathways causing alterations in gene expression, increased T cell proliferation, and secretion of cytokines (6). CD3 (cluster of differentiation 3) stimulation of the T cell antigen receptor plays a role in tyrosine phosphorylation of a number of cellular substrates. An important substrate of ZAP-70 is the TCR chain, which can mediate the transduction of extracellular stimuli into cellular effector functions (7,8). ZAP-70 plays a critical role in cell surface expression of T cell antigen receptor-CD3 complex signaling during the early stages of T cell development and differentiation (9 -13). The ZAP-70 tyrosine kinase is reported to play a critical role in T cell activation and the immune response, and therefore might be a logical target for immunomodulatory therapies (5). Crespo et al. (14) observed that among B cell and T cell lymphoproliferative disorders, a high level of ZAP-70 expression is found in T cell proliferative diseases, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and a subgroup of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (15,16). These * This work was supported, in whole or in part, by National Institutes of Health Grants CA81064, CA77646, CA111536, and CA120388. This work was also supported by The Hormel Foundation. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.