Enzootic nasal tumor virus type 2 envelope of goats acts as a retroviral oncogene in cell transformation.

Enzootic nasal tumor virus type 1 (ENTV-1) (ovine nasal tumor virus) and ENTV-2 (caprine nasal tumor virus) are known to be causative agents of enzootic nasal adenocarcinoma (ENA) in sheep and goats, respectively. Although the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of ENTV-1 and ENTV-2 are quite similar, they are recognized as phylogenetically distinct viruses. The envelope protein of ENTV-1 functions as an oncoprotein in the in vitro transformation of epithelial cells and fibroblasts. Thus, it is the primary determinant of in vivo tumorigenesis in ENA. As per our knowledge, no previous studies have reported in detail the role of ENTV-2 in ENA tumorigenesis. Here, in order to investigate the molecular mechanism of caprine ENA oncogenesis by ENTV-2, we have attempted to identify the transforming potential of ENTV-2 envelope, and investigated the activation of cell signaling pathways in oncogenic transformation. Our findings confirmed that ENTV-2 envelope was capable of inducing oncogenic transformation of rat cell lines in vitro. Further, we found that MAPK, Akt, and p38 were constitutively activated in ENTV-2 envelope-transformed clone cells. In addition, inhibitor experiments revealed that MEK-MAPK and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways are involved in the ENTV-2 envelope-induced cell transformation. These data indicate that ENTV-2 envelope could induce oncogenic transformation by signaling pathways that are also utilized by ENTV-1 envelope.