Human mesothelial cells are unusually susceptible to simian virus 40-mediated transformation and asbestos cocarcinogenicity

Maurizio Bocchetta, Ilaria Di Resta, Amy Powers, Raoul Fresco, Alessandra Tosolini, Joseph R. Testa, Harvey I. Pass, Paola Rizzo, Michele Carbone

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

224 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mesothelioma, a malignancy associated with asbestos, has been recently linked to simian virus 40 (SV40). We found that infection of human mesothelial cells by SV40 is very different from the semipermissive infection thought to be characteristic of human cells. Mesothelial cells are uniformly infected but not lysed by SV40, a mechanism related to p53, and undergo cell transformation at an extremely high rate. Exposure of mesothelial cells to asbestos complemented SV40 mutants in transformation. Our data provide a mechanistic explanation for the ability of SV40 to transform mesothelial cells preferentially and indicate that asbestos and SV40 may be cocarcinogens.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10214-10219
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume97
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 29 2000

Keywords

  • Asbestos/toxicity
  • Carcinogens/toxicity
  • Cell Transformation, Neoplastic
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Epithelial Cells/drug effects
  • Fibroblasts/cytology
  • Humans
  • Mesothelioma/etiology
  • Simian virus 40
  • Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/genetics

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