Researchers have isolated a new herpes virus strain from cells of Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common cancer in patients AIDS. The achievement, reported in tomorrow's issue of New England Journal of Medicine , may help researchers explore how the new virus spreads. Preliminary work with the virus already suggested that it plays a role in cancer development.
's sarcoma lesions are comprised of tumor cells, spindle-shaped in the wall of the tiny blood vessels. A team led by virologist Gary Nabel of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor pathologist Brian Nickoloff of Loyola University Medical Center has isolated the new virus from the cells in skin lesions taken from five HIV-positive people. Other groups have isolated unique herpes DNA fragments from injuries sarcoma, but this study is the first to grow live virus from tumor cells. When the group added the virus in embryonic kidney cells, the cells were infected with viral DNA to 20 cell generations.
The discovery is an important step in understanding the transmission of Kaposi's sarcoma, says Parkash Gill, professor of pathology and medicine who studies these tumors at the University of Southern California. It is still unclear whether the virus causes lesions, says Nabel, but the replication of the virus seems to imply in the origin of tumors.
The kidney epithelial cells are infected, Nabel said, may also help explain why Kaposi's sarcoma is common among gay men with AIDS. Indeed, epithelial cells line the rectum - a port of entry for the virus during anal sex - and embryonic kidney cells are closely related to those of the device and the urogenital bladder, which with genital secretions may harbor the virus, he said.
Get herpesvirus replication in the test tube is an important step towards the development of animal models of the new virus and antiviral drugs. Nabel said, "All these possibilities are now."
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