A phenomenon analogous to bacterial cell lysogeny occurs in animal cells infected with certain viruses. These animal viruses do not generally cause disease immediately for certain animal cells. Instead, animal cells are persistently infected with such viruses, the DNA of which (provirus) is integrated into the chromosomal DNA of the host cell. In general, cells with integrated proviral DNA are converted into cancer cells, a phenomenon known as malignant transformation. As is the case with bacterial prophages, the transformed animal cell contains no infectious virus but only the integrated provirus DNA, which replicates along with the dividing cell’s chromosomes. Therefore, following mitosis of the transformed cell, each new cell receives a copy of the proviral DNA. The hallmark of these transformed animal cells is that their growth is uncontrollable; unlike normal cells, their growth is not inhibited by contact with other cells, and they lose their capacity to adhere (anchor) to certain surfaces. Growth of normal tissues and organs is also controlled by a genetic phenomenon called programmed cell death, or apoptosis, in which a certain number of cells will die and be eliminated after a finite number of divisions. Malignant transformation can impede programmed cell death, thus allowing the cells to grow uncontrolled and resulting in cancer.

Among the animal viruses that cause malignant transformation by integration of proviral DNA are several families of DNA viruses and one large family of RNA viruses, the Retroviridae. Viruses of the family Polyomaviridae, a group of papovaviruses, were perhaps the first to be associated with malignancy (causing death or illness) in animals. Polyomaviruses are widespread in mice; they can infect other rodents, and they can cause tumours in infected animals. Another virus of the family Polyomaviridae is simian virus 40 (SV40), originally isolated from cells of the African green monkey (Cercopithecus sabaeus), where it grows rapidly and kills the cells. Infection of rodent or human cells, however, results in an abortive infection (an incompatibility between the virus and the host cell) but sometimes induces malignancy (sarcomas or lymphomas) in the occasional cell that is transformed. Viruses related to polyomavirus and SV40 have been isolated from humans, one of which, the JC virus, appears to be the causative agent of a fatal neurological disease called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. In general, however, the human papovaviruses are not clearly associated with disease.

Other papovaviruses include the papillomaviruses (family Papillomaviridae), which are also small polygonal viruses containing circular double-stranded DNA. The papillomaviruses are associated with usually benign (nonthreatening) but widespread tumours, called papillomas or polyps, occurring in human skin and the genital tract. Specific papillomaviruses have been identified in humans in common warts and in genital warts (condylomata acuminata). Cancers of the human genital tract, particularly uterine cancer of the cervix, are frequently found in association with human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV 16); the virus undoubtedly is transmitted as a venereal disease.

Certain viruses of the family Adenoviridae, originally found in the tonsils and adenoids of humans, cause malignant transformation in certain cells. This phenomenon of cancer induction under laboratory conditions has been studied widely, but there is no evidence that the common adenoviruses cause cancers in humans. The common viruses of the family Herpesviridae, however, including the common herpes simplex viruses that cause cold sores and the venereal disease genital herpes, are suspected of being causative agents of cancer. Like the adenoviruses, the herpesviruses can cause malignant transformations, and their DNA is integrated into the host cell chromosome. A herpesvirus known as the Epstein-Barr virus causes a frequently fatal childhood cancer called Burkitt lymphoma as well as the nonmalignant disease infectious mononucleosis. The herpesvirus cytomegalovirus lies dormant in the tissues of most humans and can be induced to cause fatal diseases in infants and immunocompromised adults. A different herpesvirus causes chickenpox (varicella); the same virus lies latent in the tissues for long periods of time (perhaps years or decades) and later undergoes recrudescence (the recurrence of symptoms after they have abated) to cause the painful skin and neurological disease called herpes zoster, or shingles. In addition, there are herpesviruses that cause disease in animals—for example, the widespread and usually fatal disease in chickens called Marek’s disease. The widespread distribution of viruses of the family Herpesviridae is evident from other diseases in monkeys and frogs.

The viruses of the family Retroviridae are perhaps the most widely distributed of the transforming viruses that infect eukaryotic cells ranging from yeast to humans. It was suggested early in the 20th century that viruses cause leukemias and lymphomas in birds. In 1911 the American pathologist Peyton Rous first described a virus that causes sarcomas in chickens.

The virions of retroviruses are spherical (or polygonal) and are surrounded by a lipid membrane containing a glycoprotein that recognizes and binds to cell receptors of a particular species (type-specific glycoproteins). Retrovirus genomes consist of two identical RNA molecules, each with 7,000 to 10,000 nucleotides. Associated with the virion RNA is an enzyme, an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, also called a reverse transcriptase. Using the virion RNA as a template, the reverse transcriptase catalyzes the synthesis of a linear DNA molecule complementary to the virion RNA. The new complementary strand of DNA also serves as a template for the reverse transcriptase, which makes a second anticomplementary DNA molecule, thus forming double-stranded DNA. The genomic RNA of fully infectious bird retroviruses, those that can replicate autonomously, has four genes that code sequentially for group-specific antigens, the reverse transcriptase, the envelope glycoprotein, and the sarcoma-transforming protein. At each end of the genome are homologous flanking nucleotide sequences, known as long terminal repeats (LTR), which code for double-stranded DNA that can recognize host cell DNA sequences for integration of the proviral DNA into the host cell chromosome. Many retroviruses are defective and cannot replicate in cells without helper (nondefective) retroviruses. The helper retroviruses generally transform fibroblastic cells, resulting in malignant sarcomas, whereas the defective retroviruses transform blood-cell precursors, resulting in leukemias.

Many different retroviruses have been identified as causative agents of cancers in birds, rodents (particularly mice), domestic cats, monkeys, and humans. Certain lymphatic leukemias in humans are caused by human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV); acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by a retrovirus called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Retroviruses originated from genes in many different species of animals and even lower forms of life. Individual retroviruses are limited in their host range and do not readily cross species barriers. Virtually every retrovirus studied to date is analogous to the genes normally found in animals (including humans), known as proto-oncogenes, genes that are involved with regulating normal cell growth and development and that also have the potential to change into cancer-causing genes. These proto-oncogenes have deoxynucleotide sequences closely, but not entirely, homologous (i.e., of the same type and order) to the nucleotide sequences of a corresponding viral cancer-causing gene, called an oncogene. Integration of retrovirus DNA into cell chromosomes results in cancer, but the proto-oncogenes do not become cancer-causing genes unless triggered by another event. Cancers caused by chemical or physical carcinogens in the environment probably often, if not invariably, are due to alterations in the sequences of proto-oncogenes that have converted them to oncogenes. Some of the DNA tumour viruses, such as SV40 or adenoviruses, may induce malignant transformation when their DNA is integrated in proximity to the site of a proto-oncogene. All cancers studied to date appear to be due to either mutations in proto-oncogenes or the inheritance of mutated tumour suppressor genes, which normally regulate the function of proto-oncogenes.