title: A cornucopia of human polyomaviruses.
abstract: During the past 6 years, focused virus hunting has led to the discovery of nine new human polyomaviruses, including Merkel cell polyomavirus, which has been linked to Merkel cell carcinoma, a lethal skin cell cancer. The discovery of so many new and highly divergent human polyomaviruses raises key questions regarding their evolution, tropism, latency, reactivation, immune evasion and contribution to disease. This Review describes the similarities and differences among the new human polyomaviruses and discusses how these viruses might interact with their human host.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. james_decaprio@dfci.harvard.edu
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: DeCaprio
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Garcea
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D015266:Carcinoma, Merkel Cell / Q000821:virology*; D016679:Genome, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D006801:Humans; D059965:Merkel cell polyomavirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D011120:Polyomavirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D027601:Polyomavirus Infections / Q000821:virology*; D011323:Primates; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000821:virology*; D014412:Tumor Virus Infections / Q000821:virology*; D056189:Viral Tropism