According to an international team of scientists from the United States, Europe and Russia, non-coding parts of the human genome known as vlincRNAs triggered by ancient viruses participate in the development of cancer.
They also found that the elimination of these vlincRNAs (very long intergenic, non-coding RNAs) caused the death of cancer cells.
Dr Philipp Kapranov from the St. Laurent Institute, who is a senior author of a paper published in the journal Genome Biology, said: “understanding this previously ignored part of the human genome, its role in human development, and how it may be taken over by disease, opens a new frontier in science with important implications for medical advances.”
Read the full, original story here: Remnants of Ancient Viruses in Human Genome May Play Role in Cancer
