Prevalence and genotype identification of human JC virus in colon cancer in Taiwan

Abstract

Although JC virus (JCV), a human polyomavirus, has been detected in colon cancers, the association between JCV and colon cancer remains controversial. In Taiwan, the prevalence of JCV infection in colon cancer patients has not been reported. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate JCV infection in colon cancers in Taiwan. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues from 22 colon cancer patients were examined in this study. Nested PCR was performed to detect viral genomic DNA. The product of the nested PCR flanking the JCV regulatory region was sequenced further. Viral large tumor protein, LT, and late capsid protein, VP1, were examined by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Nested PCR revealed JCV genomic DNA in 86.4% (19/22) of the colon cancer tissue samples. Both rearranged and archetypal genotypes of JCV were identified. Expression of JCV LT was positive in 63.6% (14/22) of the examined colon cancer tissue samples but not in any adjacent normal region. Expression of viral capsid protein VP1 was not detected in any of the tissues examined. The current study demonstrates that JCV genomic DNA was present in the examined colon cancer tissues. The genotypes of JCV in colon cancer tissues were also identified. Expression of viral early protein but not structural capsid protein was detected in the examined colon cancer tissues. Furthermore, a high prevalence of JCV infection in colon cancer tissues in Taiwan was also demonstrated.

Efficient gene transfer using the human JC virus-like particle that inhibits human colon adenocarcinoma growth in a nude mouse model

“…Human colon cells are susceptible to JCV infection. 5,8 The JCV VLP was able to deliver a suicide gene into human colon cancer cells for expression and subsequently this was able to cause cell death in the presence of GCV as shown in this study. Up to the presence, no effective drug that is able to inhibit JCV replication has been developed.…”

“…In addition, the JCV DNA has been found in many human tissues including the gastrointestinal track, 10 lung, 11 colon, [5][6][7][8] and esophagus. 9 This indicates that many human tissues maybe susceptible to JCV VLP infection.…”

“…2,3 In addition, the virus has also been found to be associated with some CNS tumors, such as oligoastrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, and medullablastomas. 4 The virus has also been detected in the upper and lower gastrointestinal tract and other non-neural tumors, such as colon cancers, [5][6][7][8] esophageal cancers, 9 gastric cancers, 10 and lung cancer.…”

Differential expression of viral agents in lymphoma tissues of patients with ABC diffuse large B-cell lymphoma from high and low endemic infectious disease regions

“…Sources of infection that have been suggested include virus-bearing fluids, contaminated food and water (56,57). The association of JCV with human malignancies is controversial; however, several studies have shown JCV to be associated with human cancers as colorectal-, gastric-, lung-and brain cancers (58)(59)(60)(61)(62). In a study by Flaegstad et al (63), BKV was reported to be expressed in the tissue samples of neuroblastomas, but not found in control tissues.…”

The Role of Infectious Agents in Colorectal Carcinogenesis

“…Ten studies, with sample sizes ranging from 18 to 186, detected JCV genomic sequences in 9-89% of colorectal carcinomas and 5-82% of adenomatous tissue (Laghi et al, 1999;Theodoropoulos et al, 2005; R. Hori et al, 2005;Casini et al, 2005;Enam et al, 2002;Goel et al, 2006;P. Y. Lin et al, 2008, Niv et al, 2010aKarpinski et al, 2011;Jung et al, 2008).…”