ISSN: 2048-9145

Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing

Oncogenesis Scholarly Peer-review Journal

 Acutely transforming viruses usually are generated when a cellular protooncogene is captured by insertion into the viral genome during viral replication. This process usually causes genetic changes in the protooncogene, resulting in an oncogene, or dominant transforming gene. The same process usually also results in a replication-defective virus that requires a helper virus for its replication. The helper virus provides viral proteins to form the virion in which the RNA of the defective virus is packaged. These mixed particles are called pseudotypes. The first discovered oncogenic virus was Rous sarcoma virus (RSV), which was shown to be a transmissible agent causing sarcomas in chickens.2 This was one of the first identified retroviruses. RSV was the first acutely transforming virus of many that was shown to have acquired its oncogenicity by the capture of a cellular gene, in this case one called src. This was perhaps made possible in part because RSV, unlike most acutely transforming viruses, is replication competent and does not require a helper virus, thus making it simpler to study. The src gene in RSV is inserted as a separate gene immediately 3′ of the other viral genes. The transforming potential could be assigned to the viral src gene (v-src) because transformation-defective RSV has mutations specifically in v-src and because it confers transforming capability to recombinant viruses that contain it. These findings led to the recognition that normal cellular genes when modified and in the appropriate setting could cause malignant transformation.

High Impact List of Articles

Relevant Topics in Clinical