The oncogenic role of JC virus T antigen in lens tumors without cell specificity of alternative splicing of its intron

// Wen-feng Gou 1 , Shuang Zhao 1 , Dao-fu Shen 1 , Xue-feng Yang 1 , Yun-peng Liu 2 , Hong-zhi Sun 1 , Jun-sheng Luo 1 and Hua-chuan Zheng 1 1 Cancer Research Center, Key Laboratory of Brain and Spinal Cord Injury of Liaoning Province, and Laboratory Animal Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University, Jinzhou, China 2 Department of Oncological Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China Correspondence to: Hua-chuan Zheng, email: // Keywords : JC virus, T antigen, oncogenesis, transgenic mouse, lens tumor Received : January 27, 2015 Accepted : February 01, 2015 Published : March 10, 2015 Abstract JC virus (JCV), a ubiquitous polyoma virus that commonly infects the human, is identified as the etiologic agent for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy and some malignancies. To clarify the oncogenic role of JCV T antigen, we established two transgenic mice of T antigen using either α-crystallin A (αAT) or cytokeratin 19(KT) promoter. Lens tumors were found in high-copy αAT mice with the immunopositivity of T antigen, p53, β-catenin and N-cadherin. Enlarged eyeballs were observed and tumor invaded into the brain by magnetic resonance imaging and hematoxylin-and-eosin staining. The overall survival time of homozygous mice was shorter than that of hemizygous mice (p