This unique book focuses on the DNA viruses in the human population that are associated with cancers. It covers most of the viruses that are thought to contribute to human malignancy. This book represents a comprehensive review of the field of DNA tumor virology. Right now, while there are books out there that cover individual viruses that are also covered in this book, there is no single book that covers this topic comprehensively. This book is the first current, comprehensive review of its kind in the market.
For over 25 years the study of retroviruses has underpinned much of what is known about information transfer in cells and the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that underlie cell growth and cancer induction. Emergent diseases such as AIDS and adult T-cell lymphoma have widened even further the community of investigators directly concerned with retroviruses, a development that has highlighted the need for an integrated understanding of their biology and their unique association with host genomes. This remarkable volume satisfies that need. Written by a group of the field's most distinguished investigators, rigorously edited to provide a seamless narrative, and elegantly designed for clarity and readability, this book is an instant classic that demands attention from scientists and physicians studying retroviruses and the disorders in which they play a role.
Molecular Biology of RNA Tumor Viruses deals with the molecular biology and biologic significance of RNA tumor viruses. Methods and procedures with broad application to diverse areas of molecular biology, including cell culture procedures, competition radioimmunoassays, molecular hybridization, oligonucleotide mapping, heteroduplex mapping, and restriction endonuclease techniques, are considered. This book is organized into 12 chapters and begins with a historical overview of tumor virology beginning with the early studies of Peyton Rous and leading up to the significant surge of activity during the later decade. The biology of endogenous retroviruses, their transmission both within and between species, and cellular regulatory factors influencing their expression are subsequently discussed. This book then addresses the nature and origin of transforming RNA viruses and gives a detailed review of knowledge concerning the genomic structure of type C viruses. Translational products encoded by the type C viral genome are examined in ensuing chapters, emphasizing the viral reverse transcriptase. Other mammalian retroviruses, including the mouse mammary tumor virus and type D isolates of primates, are also described. The book concludes by evaluating the possibility of direct etiologic involvement of either endogenous or exogenous RNA tumor viruses in human cancers. This book will be of value both to graduate students and to established investigators with specific interest in other aspects of molecular biology.
Molecular Virology of Human Pathogenic Viruses presents robust coverage of the key principles of molecular virology while emphasizing virus family structure and providing key context points for topical advances in the field. The book is organized in a logical manner to aid in student discoverability and comprehension and is based on the author's more than 20 years of teaching experience. Each chapter will describe the viral life cycle covering the order of classification, virion and genome structure, viral proteins, life cycle, and the effect on host and an emphasis on virus-host interaction is conveyed throughout the text. Molecular Virology of Human Pathogenic Viruses provides essential information for students and professionals in virology, molecular biology, microbiology, infectious disease, and immunology and contains outstanding features such as study questions and recommended journal articles with perspectives at the end of each chapter to assist students with scientific inquiries and in reading primary literature. - Presents viruses within their family structure - Contains recommended journal articles with perspectives to put primary literature in context - Includes integrated recommended reading references within each chapter - Provides access to online ancillary package inclusive of annotated PowerPoint images, instructor's manual, study guide, and test bank
We stand today on the threshold of a new understanding of cancer. Primarily through the powerful tools of molecular biology, unified hypotheses explaining the origins of the disease are emerging and rapidly being validated. This volume, which presents the latest findings from laboratories throughout the world on the role of RNA tumor viruses in cancer, is a celebration of these achievements and a prediction of further progress leading ultimately to the control of the disease. It is important in this context to recall the natural history or life cycle of RNA cancer virology. From the earliest days of the science, when viruses were first recognized as distinct biologic agents of etiologic significance, their role in cancer was proposed and hotly debated. The critical early discoveries, even those made as recently as 25 years ago, were met with rejection; not skepticism or cautious restraint, but outright rejection. During the 60's, there was a gradual acceptance of the association between viruses and cancer, the result of landmark studies in experimental systems, and this led to a frenzy of activity in the field. There followed another period of doubt and uncertainty, due to the difficulty in attempting to apply directly, and in retrospect inappropriately, the tenets of infectious disease to human cancers, only to have the field resurrected, revitalized and redirected by the explosion of progress in molecular biology and genetics.
The first book to specifically cover the molecular biology of retroviruses - of immense importance since the high profile of HIV. International contributors provide detailed reviews of the latest knowledge. An excellent text for both medical and non-medical researchers, it also serves as an illuminating introduction for scientists active in other areas.
In this book, the author Joseph G. Sinkovics liberally shares his views on the cancer cell which he has been observing in vivo and in vitro, over a life time. Readers will learn how, as an inherent faculty of the RNA/DNA complex, the primordial cell survival pathways are endogenously reactivated in an amplified or constitutive manner in the multicellular host, and are either masquerading as self-elements or as placentas, to which the multicellular host is evolutionarily trained to extend full support. The host obliges. The author explains that there is no such evidence that “malignantly transformed” human cells survive in nature. However, when cared for in the laboratory, these cells live and replicate as immortalized cultures. These cells retain their vitality upon storage in liquid nitrogen. One can only imagine an astrophysical environment in which such cells could survive; perhaps, first their seemingly humble exosomes would populate that environment. Immortal cell populations so created may survive as individuals, or may even re-organize themselves into multicellular colonies, as representatives of life for the duration of the Universe. This thought-provoking book is the work of a disciplined investigator and clinician with an impeccable reputation, and he enters a territory that very few if any before him have approached from the same angles. It will appeal to researchers with an interest in cell survival pathways and those researching cancer cells.
The Epstein-Barr virus was discovered 15 years ago. Since that time an immense body of information has been accumu lated on this agent which has come to assume great signifi cance in many different fields of biological science. Thus, the virus has very special relevance in human medicine and oncology, in tumor virology, in immunology, and in mole cular virology, since it is the cause of infectious mononu cleosis and also the first human cancer virus, etiologically related to endemic Burkitt's lymphoma and probably to nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In addition, continuous human lymphoid cell lines initiated and maintained by the transform ing function of the virus genome provide a laboratory tool with wide and ever-growing applications. Innumerable papers on the Epstein-Barr virus have ap peared over recent years and reports of work with this agent now constitute a veritable flood. The present book provides the first and only comprehensive, authoritative over-view of all aspects of the virus by authors who have been the original and major contributors in their particular disciplines. A complete and up-to-date survey of this unique and important agent is thus provided which should be of great interest to experts, teachers, and students engaged in cancer research, virology, immunology, molecular biology, epide miology, and cell culture. Where topics have been dealt with from more than one of these viewpoints, some inevitable overlap and duplication has resulted; although this has been kept to a minimum, it has been retained in some places because of positive usefulness.
