Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
Annu Rev Pathol. 2012;7:123-44. doi: 10.1146/annurev-pathol-011110-130227. Epub 2011 Sep 13.
Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) is the first polyomavirus directly linked to human cancer, and its recent discovery helps to explain many of the enigmatic features of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). MCV is clonally integrated into MCC tumor cells, which then require continued MCV oncoprotein expression to survive. The integrated viral genomes have a tumor-specific pattern of tumor antigen gene mutation that incapacitates viral DNA replication. This human cancer virus provides a new model in which a common, mostly harmless member of the human viral flora can initiate cancer if it acquires a precise set of mutations in a host with specific susceptibility factors, such as age and immune suppression. Identification of this tumor virus has led to new opportunities for early diagnosis and targeted treatment of MCC.
默克尔细胞多瘤病毒（MCV）是第一种与人类癌症直接相关的多瘤病毒，其最近的发现有助于解释默克尔细胞癌（MCC）的许多谜团。MCV 克隆整合到 MCC 肿瘤细胞中，然后需要持续的 MCV 癌蛋白表达才能存活。整合的病毒基因组具有肿瘤抗原基因突变的肿瘤特异性模式，从而使病毒 DNA 复制失活。这种人类癌症病毒提供了一个新的模型，即如果一种常见的、大多数无害的人类病毒在具有特定易感性因素（如年龄和免疫抑制）的宿主中获得一组特定的突变，它就可以引发癌症。这种肿瘤病毒的鉴定为 MCC 的早期诊断和靶向治疗提供了新的机会。
