On the Interaction Between Tumor Viruses and Cells: A Virogenetic Concept of Tumorigenesis2

Abstract

This paper presents a virogenetic concept of tumor origin. A virus induces a hereditary transformation of a normal into a tumor cell, conditioned by the supplementary genetic information brought into the normal cell with the nucleic acid of the virus. Such a process cannot be considered a mutation, which is a change of the appropriate genome of the cell, but as a conversion of a normal into a tumor cell which involves incorporation of a genetic substance carrying additional genetic information. The reproduction of the cell with transformed heredity leads to the formation of a tumor, and as an entity the virus will take no part in this process, though it may still exist in the mature form in some tumors. Certain alterations of antigenic structure occur in tumor cells, and they cease then to submit to the growth regulation systems of the organism. The data presented show that some tumors induced by chemical or physical factors are conditioned by latent viruses; therefore the above concept may have a general significance.