SV40-Mediated Oncogenesis
SV40-Mediated Oncogenesis
Maurizio Bocchetta and Michele Carbone
Simian virus 40 (SV40) was first isolated in 1958 among other simian viruses
from contaminated polio vaccine preparations, which were inadvertently
administered to millions of people in different countries from 1954 to 1963.
Soon after SV40 was introduced to the scientific com¬munity (1) its capabilities
to induce different forms of cancer in exper¬imental animals were recognized
(2,3). However, epidemiology failed to establish a conclusive link between the
administration of SV40-contaminated polio vaccines to humans and the development
of cancer (4–8). Because epidemiology was inconclusive, SV40 has been
consid¬ered for many years to be harmless to humans. From the 1970s, throughout
the 1980s, and until recently, SV40 has been utilized mainly as a tool to
understand key molecular processes such as DNA replica¬tion, splicing, and
translation in mammalian cells. It has also been widely used to uncover the
process of the cell cycle control because of the interaction of its major
oncogenic protein products with critical tumor suppressor gene pathways of the
cell. Indeed, the SV40 onco-genes have probably been the most commonly used
tools to experi¬mentally immortalize or transform rodent and human cells, mainly
fibroblasts. Occasional screening of human tumors suggested that SV40 could
participate in the development of human cancer (9–15).
