Molecular Detection of Large Tumor Antigen Mutations of Merkel Cell Polyomavirus in Patients with Skin Cancer

Aim and Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are two forms of non-melanoma skin cancer. Recent research indicated that Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) is associated with Merkel cell Carcinoma (MCC). So, the aim of current study was presence of MCPyV in the tumor tissue and role of large T antigen (LT Ag) mutations that associated with MCPyV oncogenic properties in LTAg region in positive samples that referred to Razi Hospital in Tehran within 2015-2016.
In this cross-sectional study, 55 tissue samples containing: 30 BCC, 10 SCC and 15 individual healthy samples were collected and genomic DNA was extracted. To finding positive samples, quantitative Real-Time PCR was done and the full-length of Large T antigen region was amplified and sequenced directly for detection of probable mutations.
MCPyV genome was detected only 10% of BCC samples. There is no correlation between sex (P-Value=0.33), age (P-Value=0.5), or stage of cancer (P-Value=0.25) and the presence of MCPyV genome in our populations of study.
Viral infections are one of the factors in causing cancer. Although, several studies were reported that frame shift mutation at the N-terminus of LT Ag region is associated with tumorigenesis of the virus, but in current study, no any mutations causing stop codons or frame shifting were observed. As our knowledge this is the first study presenting data on the prevalence of MCPyV in non-melanoma skin cancer from Iranian patients. However, further studies with more samples are necessary.