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Jc Virus and Anal Cancer
Sonia Ramamoorthy*1, Ajay Goel2, Bikash Devaraj1, Linda Luo1, Katsumi N. Miyai3, C. R. Boland2, John M. Carethers4,1
1Surgery, UC San Diego Medical Center, La Jolla, CA; 2Medicine, Baylor University Medical Center, Houston, TX; 3Pathology, UC San Diego Medical Center, La Jolla, CA; 4Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Background: Anal carcinoma is often associated with human papilloma virus (HPV) which is thought to drive its pathogenesis by interrupting the function of several cell cycle regulatory proteins such as TP53 and Rb. JC virus (JCV) expresses a T-antigen (T-Ag) that plays play a critical role in malignant transformation through the development of aneuploidy and by interacting with some of the same cell regulatory proteins as HPV. JCV T-Ag expression has been reported in a variety of human malignancies, including brain tumors, colon cancer, and gastric cancers, but has not been evaluated in anal cancers. We examined a cohort of anal cancer cases for JCV T-Ag expression and correlated this with clinicopathologic data.Methods: Twenty-one paraffin-embedded, formalin fixed anal carcinoma specimens with associated clinical data (HIV status, gender, and cancer stage) were obtained under IRB approval. Anal cancer specimens were subject to immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining for JCV T-Ag. Extracted DNA from the tumor and normal tissue was then sequenced, and determination of the number of JCV copies was done by quantitative PCR and Southern blots using a cell line standard.Results: Of the 21cases of anal cancer, 12 (57%) were in HIV positive individuals. The average age of our cohort was 45 years and 38% were female. All 21 cases stained positive for JCV T-Ag by IHC. There was a statistically significant higher number of JCV viral copies/μg of DNA in anal cancer tissue when compared with surrounding normal tissue (mean 49.12 copies/μg DNA vs. 2.15 copies/μg DNA, p<0.014). There was no correlation found between disease stage and the number of JCV viral copies (Table 1). There was a statistically significant difference in the number of JCV viral copies in HIV positive vs. HIV negative patients (74.7 vs. 9.4 copies/μg DNA, respectively, p<0.05). Conclusions: Anal carcinomas show 100% expression of JCV T-Ag and correlates with an increased number of copies of JCV in cancer DNA compared to surrounding normal tissues. HIV infected anal cancer patients had higher JCV viral copies over HIV negative patients. JCV, presumably through its interruption of cell regulatory proteins, might play a role in anal cancer pathogenesis.
Anal Cancer Stage and JCV copies/ug DNA
| Stage | N (%) | Average JCV Copies/ ug DNA |
| 1 | 11(52%) | 60.47 |
| 2 | 4 (19%) | 14.15 |
| 3 | 4 (19%) | 205.5 |
| 4 | 2 (9%) | 92 |
Back to Program | 2010 Program and Abstracts Overview | 2010 Posters
