title: RNA viruses and cancer: Lucy Wortham James Lecture (Basic Science).
abstract: Some animal viruses that contain RNA replicate through a DNA intermediate. The molecular details of the replication of these viruses, which are called ribodenoxyviruses, are starting to be known. The ribodenoxyviruses belonging to a single species may either cause sarcomas, leukemia or no disease. The viruses belonging to a single species differ only in whether or not they contain genes for disease formation. In the case of Rous sarcoma virus, the virus causes sarcomas by adding a gene for sarcoma formation to the genome of infected cells. Ribodeoxyviruses appear to undergo different kinds of genetic changes at extraordinarily high rates. In addition, nucleotide sequences related to ribodeoxyvirus RNA are present in the DNA of many uninfected cells. These nucleotide sequences may represent a virus precursor, and ribodeoxyviruses are hypothesized to have evolved from these nucleotide sequences in uninfected cells. These data have led us to hypothesis that non-viral carcinogens act to mutate a cellular gene(s) that is involved in the same types of information transfer and genetic variation as ribodeoxyviruses and thus give rise to the formation of cancer gene(s).
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001354:Avian Leukosis Virus; D001483:Base Sequence; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; D004279:DNA, Viral; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000209:etiology*; D009858:Oncogenic Viruses; D012367:RNA, Viral; D012190:Retroviridae; D014779:Virus Replication
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D012367:RNA, Viral