Prevention of Tumor Formation by Latent Gammaherpesvirus Infection

Recent reports suggested that chronic herpesvirus infection, as a constituent of the so-called virome, may not only exert harmful effects but may also be beneficial to the host, for example mediating increased resistance to secondary infections or to tumors. To further challenge this concept, specifically regarding increased resistance to tumors, we infected chimeric HLA-DR4-H2-E (DR4) mice, a mouse strain which spontaneously develops hematological tumors, with the rodent herpesvirus murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68). Using this model, we observed that infection with wildtype MHV-68 completely prevented tumor formation. This happened, however, at the cost of hyposplenism. In contrast to wildtype infection, infection with a latency-deficient mutant of MHV-68 neither prevented tumor formation nor induced hyposplenism. The underlying mechanisms are not known but might be related to an infection-mediated priming of the immune response, resulting in the suppression of a tumor promoting endogenous retrovirus. Thus, under certain circumstances, chronic herpesvirus infection may prevent the development of tumors.