Published In

Advances in Hematology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Subjects

Zebra danio -- Genetics, Zabra danio -- Mitochondrial DNA -- Analysis, Zebra danio -- Development

Abstract

Genomic instability plays a crucial role in oncogenesis. Somatically acquiredmutations can disable some genes and inappropriately activate others. In addition, chromosomal rearrangements can amplify, delete, or even fuse genes, altering their functions and contributing to malignant phenotypes. Using array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH), a technique to detect numeric variations between different DNA samples, we examined genomes from zebrafish (Danio rerio) T-cell leukemias of three cancerprone lines. In all malignancies tested, we identified recurring amplifications of a zebrafish endogenous retrovirus. This retrovirus, ZFERV, was first identified due to high expression of proviral transcripts in thymic tissue from larval and adult fish.We confirmed ZFERV amplifications by quantitative PCR analyses of DNA from wild-type fish tissue and normal and malignant D. rerio T cells. We also quantified ZFERV RNA expression and found that normal and neoplastic T cells both produce retrovirally encoded transcripts, but most cancers show dramatically increased transcription. In aggregate, these data imply that ZFERV amplification and transcription may be related to T-cell leukemogenesis. Based on these data and ZFERV’s phylogenetic relation to viruses of the murine-leukemia-related virus class of gammaretroviridae, we posit that ZFERV may be oncogenic via an insertional mutagenesis mechanism.

Description

* At the time of publication Kim H. Brown was affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Copyright © 2012 J. Kimble Frazer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI

10.1155/2012/627920

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/18532

Included in

Biology Commons

Share

COinS