ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2017
Making a virtue of necessity: the pleiotropic role of human endogenous retroviruses in cancer.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Close to the Bedside: A Systematic Review of Endogenous Retroviruses and Their Impact in Oncology.The Journal of surgical research · 2019Pooled it
- Endogenous retrovirus control of calbindin is essential for human early embryogenesis.Science advances · 2026Article
- Receptor-defined targeting of a genomically unique melanoma-enriched noncanonical antigen.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Article
- HERV6196 as an enhancer with oncogenic potential in rectal cancer.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Plasma HERV-K envelopE RNA: a minimally invasive biomarker for lung adenocarcinoma detection and prognostic assessment in the context of conventional serum tumor markers.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Review
- Article
- Tracking Nongenetic Evolution from Primary to Metastatic ccRCC: TRACERx Renal.Cancer discovery · 2025Article
- Endogenous retroelements in hematological malignancies: From epigenetic dysregulation to therapeutic targeting.American journal of hematology · 2025Review
- Uncovering the link between human endogenous retroviruses, inflammatory pathways, and gastric cancer development.Cancer biomarkers : section A of Disease markers · 2024Article
- Extracellular vesicles and co-isolated endogenous retroviruses from murine cancer cells differentially affect dendritic cells.The EMBO journal · 2023Article
- The transcriptional landscape of endogenous retroelements delineates esophageal adenocarcinoma subtypes.NAR cancer · 2023Article
- The Immunological Conundrum of Endogenous Retroelements.Annual review of immunology · 2023Review
- HERVs and Cancer-A Comprehensive Review of the Relationship of Human Endogenous Retroviruses and Human Cancers.Biomedicines · 2023Review
- New oncogenic functions of LINE1 retroelement as a ceRNA for tumor suppressive microRNA miR-126 on ENPP5.PloS one · 2023Article
- Expression profile of HERVs and inflammatory mediators detected in nasal mucosa as a predictive biomarker of COVID-19 severity.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Therapeutic potential of the human endogenous retroviral envelope protein HEMO: a pan-cancer analysis.Molecular oncology · 2022Article
- Identification of Highly Cross-Reactive Mimotopes for a Public T Cell Response in Murine Melanoma.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Article
- Crosstalk between the Intestinal Virome and Other Components of the Microbiota, and Its Effect on Intestinal Mucosal Response and Diseases.Journal of immunology research · 2022Review
- Transcriptional and reverse transcriptional regulation of host genes by human endogenous retroviruses in cancers.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Like all other mammals, humans harbour an astonishing number of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), as well as other retroelements, embedded in their genome. These remnants of ancestral germline infection with distinct exogenous retroviruses display various degrees of open reading frame integrity and replication capability. Modern day exogenous retroviruses, as well as the infectious predecessors of ERVs, are demonstrably oncogenic. Further, replication-competent ERVs continue to cause cancers in many other species of mammal. Moreover, human cancers are characterized by transcriptional activation of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). These observations conspire to incriminate HERVs as causative agents of human cancer. However, exhaustive investigation of cancer genomes suggests that HERVs have entirely lost the ability for re-infection and thus the potential for insertional mutagenic activity. Although there may be non-insertional mechanisms by which HERVs contribute to cancer development, recent evidence also uncovers potent anti-tumour activities exerted by HERV replication intermediates or protein products. On balance, it appears that HERVs, despite their oncogenic past, now represent potential targets for immune-mediated anti-tumour mechanisms.This article is part of the themed issue 'Human oncogenic viruses'.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.