DNA viruses and cancer: insights from evolutionary biology

Abstract

When it comes to understanding the exact mechanisms behind the virus induced cancers, we have often turned to molecular biology. It would be fair to argue that our understanding of cancers caused by viruses has significantly improved since the isolation of Epstein–Barr virus from Burkitt’s lymphoma. However they are some important questions that remain unexplored like what advantage do viruses derive by inducing carcinogenesis? Why do viruses code for the so called oncogenes? Why DNA viruses are disproportionately linked to cancers? These questions have been addressed from the lens of evolutionary biology in this review. The evolutionary analysis of virus induced cancer suggests that persistent strategy of infection could be a stable strategy for DNA viruses and also the main culprit behind their tendency to cause cancer.The framework presented in the review not only explains wider observations about cancer caused by viruses but also offers fresh predictions to test the hypothesis.