HYPOTHESIS - ROGUE CELL-TYPE CHROMOSOMAL DAMAGE IN LYMPHOCYTES IS ASSOCIATED WITH INFECTION WITH THE JC HUMAN POLYOMA-VIRUS AND HAS IMPLICATIONS FOR ONCOPENESIS

The hemagglutination inhibition antibody titers against the JC and BK polyoma viruses (JCV and BKV, respectively) are significantly elevated in individuals exhibiting ''rogue'' cells among their cultured lympho cytes. However, the elevation is so much greater with respect to JCV t hat the BKV elevation could readily be explained by cross reactivity t o the capsid protein of these two closely related viruses, The JCV exh ibits high sequence homology with the simian papovavirus, simian virus 40 (SV40), and Inoculation of human fetal brain cells with JCV produc es polyploidy and chromosomal damage very similar to that produced by SV40. We suggest, by analogy with the effects of SV40, that these chan ges are due to the action of the viral large tumor antigen, a pluripot ent DNA binding protein that acts in both transcription and replicatio n, The Implications of these findings for oncogenesis are briefly disc ussed.