High-Throughput Sequencing-Based Investigation of Viruses in Human Cancers by Multienrichment Approach

Area of Science:

• Virology
• Oncology
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Infectious agents, including viruses, are responsible for over 15% of human cancers.
• Previous virus-cancer association studies primarily analyzed cancer transcriptome data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the virome across diverse cancer types using comprehensive sequencing.
• To identify potential viral contributions to human carcinogenesis.

Main Methods:

• Applied multiple presequencing enrichment methods targeting major viral groups.
• Utilized high-throughput sequencing on 197 cancerous samples from 18 types, generating 710 datasets (57 billion reads).
• Performed in silico analysis of viral content, including artifact exclusion, from assembled contigs and reads.

Main Results:

• Detected a virome predominantly composed of papillomaviruses, anelloviruses, herpesviruses, and parvoviruses.
• Found that over 50% of analyzed cancer samples harbored at least one virus.
• No statistically significant associations were established between specific detected viruses and particular cancer types.

Conclusions:

• This research provides a valuable dataset on viral presence in human cancers.
• Highlights the complexity of the human virome in oncological contexts.
• Establishes a reference virome map for future investigations into virus-cancer interactions.