Polio virus and brain cancer

Brain metastasis cancer-associated fibroblasts (bmCAFs) are emerging as crucial players in the development of breast cancer brain metastasis (BCBM), but our understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms is limited. In this study, we aim to elucidate the pathological contributions of fucosylation (the post-translational modification of proteins by the dietary sugar L-fucose) to tumor-stromal interactions that drive the development of BCBM. Here, we report that patient-derived bmCAFs secrete high levels of polio virus receptor (PVR), which enhance the invasive capacity of BC cells...

Simian virus 40 (SV40) is a small DNA tumor virus of monkey origin. This polyomavirus was administered to human populations mainly through contaminated polio vaccines, which were produced in naturally infected SV40 monkey cells. Previous molecular biology and recent immunological assays have indicated that SV40 is spreading in human populations, independently from earlier SV40-contaminated vaccines. SV40 DNA sequences have been detected at a higher prevalence in specific human cancer specimens, such as the brain and bone tumors, malignant pleural mesotheliomas, and lymphoproliferative disorders, compared to the corresponding normal tissues/specimens...

Polyomaviruses, classified in Polyomaviridae family, are non-enveloped small (40-45 nm) viruses with icosahedral symmetry and circular double-stranded DNA genome. Polyomaviruses can infect a variety of vertebrates including birds, rodents, cattle, monkeys and humans. The characteristics such as establishment of latent infections, reactivations during immunosuppression and oncogenic potencies render the human polyomaviruses (HPyVs) of considerable importance for public health. The first polyomavirus (Mouse polyomavirus) has been identified in 1953 as filterable tumor-causing agents in mice, followed by Simian vacuolating virus (SV40) isolated from rhesus monkey kidney cells that had been used for poliovirus vaccine preparation in 1960...

Simian virus 40 (SV40) is a DNA virus isolated in 1960 from contaminated polio vaccines, that induces mesotheliomas, lymphomas, brain and bone tumors, and sarcomas, including osteosarcomas, in hamsters. These same tumor types have been found to contain SV40 DNA and proteins in humans. Mesotheliomas and brain tumors are the two tumor types that have been most consistently associated with SV40, and the range of positivity has varied about from 6 to 60%, although a few reported 100% of positivity and a few reported 0%...

Polyomaviruses are DNA tumor viruses with small circular genomes. Three polyomaviruses have captured attention with regard to their potential role in the development of human brain tumors: JC virus (JCV), BK virus (BKV), and simian vacuolating virus 40 (SV40). JCV is a neurotropic polyomavirus that is the etiologic agent of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a fatal demyelinating disease of the central nervous system occurring mainly in AIDS patients. BKV is the causative agent of polyomavirus-associated nephropathy (PVN) which occurs after renal transplantation when BKV reactivates from a latent state during immunosuppressive therapy to cause allograft failure...

Millions of people worldwide were inadvertently exposed to live simian virus 40 (SV40) between 1955 and 1963 through immunization with SV40-contaminated polio vaccines. Although the prevalence of SV40 infections in humans is not known, numerous studies suggest that SV40 is a pathogen resident in the human population today. SV40 is a potent DNA tumor virus that is known to induce primary brain cancers, bone cancers, mesotheliomas, and lymphomas in laboratory animals. SV40 oncogenesis is mediated by the viral large tumor antigen (T-ag), which inactivates the tumor suppressor proteins p53 and pRb...

Simian virus 40 (SV40) has been detected in human tumors in over 40 different laboratories. Many of these reports linked SV40 to human mesotheliomas. The Vaccine Safety Committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences, USA, recently reviewed the evidence associating polio vaccines and/or SV40 with human tumors. The IOM conclusions about polio vaccines and human cancer were: (1) 'the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation between SV40-containing polio vaccines and cancer' because the 'epidemiological studies are sufficiently flawed'; (2) 'the biological evidence is of moderate strength that SV40 exposure from the polio vaccines is related to SV40 infection in humans'...

The three antiviral vaccines discovered in the 18th century (smallpox), 19th century (rabies), and 20th century (polio) share a common feature: none would ever be licensed today for human vaccination. Yet Jenner's smallpox vaccine led to the eradication of smallpox, Pasteur's rabies vaccine represented the first successful post-exposure treatment of people bitten by rabid animals, and polio vaccine administered since its discovery in 1950 is leading to the eradication of polio (in the years 2004-2005) from the earth...

BACKGROUND: The presence of SV40 in monkey cell cultures used in the preparation of the polio vaccine from 1955 through 1961 is well documented. Investigations have consistently demonstrated the oncogenic behavior of SV40 in animal models. Early epidemiologic studies were inadequate in demonstrating an increase in cancer incidence associated with contaminated vaccine. Recently, investigators have provided persuasive evidence that SV40 is present in human ependymomas, choroid plexus tumors, bone tumors, and mesotheliomas, however, the etiologic role of the virus in tumorigenesis has not been established...

U.S. polio vaccines produced during the 1950s were potentially contaminated by simian virus 40 (SV40). Recently DNA from SV40 has been detected in brain ependymoma, pleural mesothelioma and osteosarcoma. In 1957, when national polio vaccination was started in Sweden, vaccine potentially contaminated with SV40 was given to approximately 700,000 individuals, mainly pre-school and school children born between 1946 and 1953. From 1958, a Swedish inactivated polio vaccine was exclusively used, which has been claimed to be free of SV40...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) oncoviruses can induce neoplastic transformation by interfering with proliferative proteins. Simian virus 40 (SV40) has been shown to induce brain tumors, osteosarcoma, lymphoid tumors and malignant mesothelioma in hamsters and SV40-like DNA sequences corresponding to the Rb-pocket binding domain of SV40 T-antigen (Tag) have been detected in the same human tumors. Since only a small percentage of people exposed to asbestos fibers develop a malignant mesothelioma, SV40 has been suspected to co-operate with the fibers in the neoplastic transformation or even to itself induce the onset of malignant mesothelioma in patients without expositive history...

The authors have reviewed 143 cases of medulloblastoma in children aged 19 years or younger who were treated in a 42-year period and reported in the Connecticut Tumor Registry. About 20 cases have occurred in each 5-year period since 1950, but 31 were seen between 1955 and 1959. Correspondingly, an excessive number of children born in the period 1954 to 1958 have developed medulloblastomas. A relationship to polio vaccine contaminated with SV40 virus may exist. Children with medulloblastomas had an increased number of immediate family members with brain tumors, leukemia, and childhood cancer when compared to controls...