What is it about?
Viruses with cancerogenic potential are found integrated into host's chromosomes and in an inactive form. This inactivity might be due to the disruption of the viral's sequence but also to true latency. In the latter case, the virus might be reactivated and produce proteins or other factors that can induce cancer. This review of the literature shows that 1/5 of the viral integrants in clinical samples is in an inactive stage.
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Why is it important?
Cancerogenic viruses are highly prevalent in the population (for instance Papillomavirus) thus, even if a subset of the inactive viruses identified in the present study is truly in an inactive status, there would be a non-trivial amount of people carrying latent viruses. These latent viruses might be reactivated by a number of biochemical routes and therefore can be considered delayed risk factors for the development of cancer. Since these integrated viruses are also inert, it might be difficult to identify them by routine screening procedures.
Perspectives
The goal of the present review is to stimulate further work aimed at: (a) addressing whether the risk for delayed cancer-inducing viruses diffused in the population is genuine; (b) determine the true prevalence of silent integrated onco-viruses in the population; and (c) establish the causes for silencing.
Luigi Marongiu
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Proportion of transcriptionally active DNA virus integrants: a meta-analysis, Future Virology, October 2017, Future Medicine,
DOI: 10.2217/fvl-2017-0063.
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