How viruses can cause cancer
This is how textbooks should be written.Viral induction is done by two main classes of viruses: DNA viruses and Oncogenic RNA viruses aka retroviruses
An example of a DNA virus is SV40, which suppresses the tumor supressing p53 protein. Usually when the cell’s genome is fucked with hella bad as in the case of viral infection, the cell goes “fuck man..i got invaders and shit….I gotta die” and activates the apoptotic pathway. End of story. If you lose p53 the apoptotic pathway is not activated so you are stuck with a fucked up genome that may be unable to undergo apoptosis…which leads to unconcontrolled cell growth/division aka cancer.
In short, viral induction of cancer is a complex/multistep process but it centers around the loss of control of cellular proliferation through…
1) overabundance of growth factors
2) mutant ras, which stays on, leading to continuously proliferating cells
3) fucking with cyclins that regulate growth cycle
4) nuking stuff like pRb that controls DNA replication
5) removing the hayflick limit via addition to telomers.…and so on.
(Source: patrick-starrr)
