Virus proteins similar to human proteins as possible disturbance on human pathways

Cancer is not rare anywhere in the world now, and the global burden of cancer continues to increase largely every year. Previous research on infections and cancers reported that, about 17.8 % of the cancers worldwide, which are over 1.9 million cases of cancer, are related to viral infections. At least six oncoviruses, cancer-causing viruses, have been known so far, which include hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, Epstein–Barr virus (EBV or HHV-4), human papillomavirus, human T lymphotropic virus type 1, Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV or HHV-8), but the pathogenic mechanism is far from being completely understood. In this study, assuming that finding human proteins significantly similar to viral oncoproteins leads to a categorization of the cancer-related pathways that are currently not clearly known, we analyzed different types of virus-caused cancers based on their similarity in order to clarify the unknown cancer mechanisms. As a result, we obtained several potential tumor pathways that may be significant and essential in oncogenic cancer process, which will be helpful for further study on cancer mechanisms and the development of new drug targets.

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The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11693-014-9141-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.