LATENT VIRUSES AND MUTATED ONCOGENES - NO EVIDENCE FOR PATHOGENICITY

This chapter discusses the role of latent viruses and mutated oncogenes in pathogenicity. Many latent viruses have been detected and assumed to be just as pathogenic as active prototypes. Likewise, cellular mutations have become detectable that do not, or just barely, affect the function and activity of genes. Yet when the affected genes are structurally related to retroviral oncogenes, they are assumed to be just as oncogenic as highly active retroviral oncogenes. However, the evidence for these hypotheses is only circumstantial—based on structural similarities to classical pathogenic viruses and viral oncogenes. Thus, without direct proof, these hypotheses may open the doors to psychologically harmful prognoses and clinically harmful prevention programs, termed as “molecular genetics at the bedside.” All conventional viruses are maximally pathogenic within weeks or months after infection before they are neutralized by antiviral immunity, causing disease as soon as they reach pathogenic thresholds in the host. In rare cases, they may be reactivated to resume replication, and hence pathogenicity, long after they are neutralized by antiviral immunity (e.g., the herpes simplex virus). © 1992, ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.