Varnier O E, Muratore O, Romanzi C A
Quad Sclavo Diagn. 1984 Dec;20(4):418-34.
Mechanisms of retrovirus induced transformation have been intensively and successfully investigated in recent years. The most important consequence of the developed techniques and the information obtained is the demonstration of the presence in the normal invertebrate and vertebrate, including human, cells of genes capable of inducing neoplastic transformation. These cellular genes have been identified by hybridization of normal cellular DNA with retroviral transforming sequences and by the demonstration of the biological activity of cellular DNA from different tumors in mouse cell transfection assays. These genomic sequences have been called proto-oncogenes to distinguish them from their retroviral equivalents, to recall their cellular origin and to differentiate them from their activated oncogenic counterparts. The different mechanisms involved in the activation of proto-oncogenes include point mutation, deletion, promoter insertion, translocation and amplification. Recent evidence suggest that transformation is a multistep process in which different oncogenes may play different roles.
近年来，逆转录病毒诱导转化的机制已得到深入且成功的研究。所开发技术及所获信息的最重要结果是，证明了在包括人类在内的正常无脊椎动物和脊椎动物细胞中存在能够诱导肿瘤转化的基因。这些细胞基因已通过正常细胞DNA与逆转录病毒转化序列的杂交以及在小鼠细胞转染试验中证明来自不同肿瘤的细胞DNA的生物活性而得以鉴定。这些基因组序列被称为原癌基因，以将它们与其逆转录病毒对应物区分开来，唤起它们的细胞起源，并将它们与其活化的致癌对应物区分开来。原癌基因激活所涉及的不同机制包括点突变、缺失、启动子插入、易位和扩增。最近的证据表明，转化是一个多步骤过程，其中不同的癌基因可能发挥不同的作用。
