6/22- Viruses and Human Malignancies Flashcards
Overview
What are some infectious agents that can cause malignancy?
- HBV, HCV
- HPV
- H. pylori
- EBV
- HHV 8
- HTLV 1
- Opisthorcis and clonorchis
- S. haematobium
- Merkel cell polyomavirus
(Adenoviruses cause tumors in other animals but have not been associated with human tumors)
How do viruses cause cancer?
Directly:
- Introduce vONC or affect function of cONC
- Interfere with tumor suppressors
- Genomic instability (DNA damage, dysregulation of DDR)
Indirectly:
- Alter host immune response
- Stimulate chronic inflammation
What is the affect of HAART on HIV-Associated Cancers?
- Improved immune function of HIV+ people
- Reduced risk of AIDS progression
- Greatly improved survival for people infected with HIV
- Decrease in AIDS-defining cancers
- Increase in other cancers
What cancers are associated with AIDS?
AIDS-defining cancers:
- Kaposi Sarcoma
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Cervical cancer
What other types of cancers actually increased in HIV/AIDS pts on HAART?
Non AIDS-defining cancers
- Anal cancer
- Hodgkin Lymphoma
- Liver cancer
- Lung cancer
What are some of the hallmarks of cancer?
- Sustaining Proliferative Signaling
- Evading Growth Suppressors
- Activating Invasion and Metastasis
- Enabling Replicative Immortality
- Inducing Angiogenesis
- Resisting Cell Death
- Deregulating Cellular Energetics
- Avoiding Immune Destruction
- Genome Instability and Mutation
- Tumor Promoting Inflammation
What is cellular transformation?
- Stable, heritable change in cell growth control
- Associated with changes in growth patterns, membrane structure and function, biochemical activity, and tumor formation.
What is the role of viruses in cellular transformation?
- Affect structure or function of cellular oncogenes and tumor suppressors
- Damage DNA
- Interfere with DNA damage repair
- Introduce viral oncogenes
- Alter host immune responses
What are the criteria for a causal relationship when looking at the association of virus infection with tumor formation?
- Infection precedes onset of tumor
- Persistence of virus or viral nucleic acid
- Geographic distribution of infection with virus similar to that of associated tumor
- Prevention of infection should prevent development of the tumor
- In vitro and in vivo models
What other factors should be considered in analyzing virus/cancer association?
- Host: genetics; immune status
- Pathogen
- Environment/exposures: UV, tobacco, aflatoxin, diet, sexual activity, etc.
(Viruses are seldom complete carcinogens, and transformation is usually a multi-step process)
What are proto-oncogenes?
Normal cellular genes whose protein products influence cell growth and differentiation of the cell
What are examples of oncogenes?
- Growth factors (GF)
- GF Receptors
- Signal transducers
- Apoptosis regulators
- Transcription factors
- Chromatin remodelers
Activation of oncogenes may cause what?
- Structural change: rearrangement mutation
- Altered expression: microRNA
What are tumor suppressor genes?
Negative regulators of cell growth
Recall: stages of cell cycle:
- G1: determination of readiness to commit to DNA synthesis. Cells are held in check by p53 and RB
- Syn = DNA synthesis
- G2: error correction If the fcts of p53 or RB are disrupted, then genetically damaged cells can undergo mitosis
What are some mechanisms of transformation for RNA tumor viruses?
- Cell-derived oncogene is carried in the viral genome (transducing retroviruses)
- Cellular proto-oncogene is activated or deregulated by integration of viral DNA (insertional activation; cis-activating retroviruses)
- Virus-encoded regulatory protein dysregulates transcription of cellular regulatory genes (transactivating retroviruses); seen in humans
What cancer is associated with HTLV-1
Leukemia/Lymphoma
- Adult T-cell lymphoma (ATL) in 1-4% of carriers
Where is HTLV-1 common found?
- S. Japan
- Central Africa
- NE S. America
- Caribbean
- Southeast US
- Australia
- Papua New Guinea
Transmission of HTLV-1?
- Sexual
- Breast feeding
- Blood exposure (cellular fraction)
What is this?
Adult T-cell lymphoma
Classification of Adult T-cell lymphoma how?
What is this?
HTLV-1 associated Adult T-cell lymphoma (ATL)
- Widespread cutaneous leukemic infiltrates
- Nodules, papules, plaques, patches, and erythroderma
Pathogenesis of HTLV-1 and leukemia/lymphoma?
Multifactorial
- Associated with monoclonal integration of virus into CD4+ leukemic T cells (site varies for each pt); little viral antigen expressed
Tax gene
-regulatory gene, transactivates cellular genes resulting in upregulation of genes associated with cell growth (supported by in vitro and in vivo models of Tax-mediated transformation and tumorigenicity)
Possible mechanisms of HTLV-1 and tumor formation?
- Inactivation of p53 and Rb (Tax-mediated)
- Inhibition of DNA repair
- Inactivation of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors
- Stimulation of cell cycle progression
- Enhancement of genomic instability
Treatment for ATL?
- Combination chemotherapy +/- anti-CCR4 MoAb
- IFN-a + Zidovudine (although dz is not felt to depend on active viral replication)
- Allogenic bone marrow transplantation