Research Progress in Human Cytomegalovirus and Tumors

Human cytomegalovirus(HCMV) is considered as the biggest beta-herpesvirus at present.It causes persistent and latent infect,contributing to the high HCMV seroprevalence worldwide.The main routs of HCMV transmission are vertical transmission and sexual contacts.The prevalence increases with age,and female prevalence significantly higher than male prevalence.Recently some studies showed that there existed HCMV infection and its genes expression in multiple types of human tumors,and which was associated with malignant degree of tumors.The above results suggested that HCMV may play an important role in the formation and progression of certain types of human tumors,and HCMV may become a novel human tumor-associated virus.Moreover,some research results indicated that by many cell signaling pathways,HCMV could inhibit cell apoptosis,promote cell proliferation,invasion,metastasis and angiogenesis,as well as form special immune escape mechanism to resist immune reaction of bodies.To investigate further the etiology relation between HCMV and tumors,and its related mechanism,may provide a new route for clinical prevention and cure of tumors.