Detection of Jc Polyomavirus Tumor Antigen in Gastric Carcinoma: A Report From Iran

Background and objectives: factors contributing to development of gastric cancer are still under investigation. the jc virus (jcv), as an oncogenic virus, has been indicated to play a possible role in gastric carcinogenesis. theoretically, tumor antigen (t-ag), the viral transforming protein, is capable of binding and inactivating tumor suppressor proteins p53 and prb, there by promoting cancer development although such a role in gastric cancer is still controversial and additional data is needed to reach a definite conclusion. the prevalence of the virus varies in different geographic regions, therefore, we aimed to investigate jcv presence in cancerous gastric tissues of iranian patients. materials and methods: thirty-one paired samples were included in this study (total of 62 samples). t-ag sequences were investigated using real-time pcr in formalin fixed paraffin embedded (ffpe) tissue samples from the tumor site and relevant adjacent non-cancerous tissues (anct). in positive samples, jcv copy number (viral load) was also measured using real-time pcr. to evaluate t-ag protein expression, immunohistochemistry examination was performed using an anti-t-ag specific antibody. results: jcv sequences were detected in 17 out of 31 gastric cancer tissue samples (54.84%) and in 10 out of 31 of the non-cancerous adjacent gastric mucosa (32.25%) (odds ratio of 2.4). viral load in tumoral and adjacent tissue samples was not statistically different (p=0.88). immunohistochemical study confirmed presence of jc t-ag in the nuclear compartment. conclusion: we showed the presence of the jc virus in gastric carcinoma tissue samples in our geographic region. this finding provides supportive data for a possible contribution of jcv in gastric cell transformation to malignancy. however, we highly recommend additional investigations to further explore jc virus and gastric cancer in order to reach a conclusion.