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Name: Loretta L Lamb
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Question:
Would it be possible for a for a virus to be radiated and it's DNA structure changed? And it if it were possible and the radiated DNA affected infected human cells, could it cause cancer? Would the type of radiation that affects the viral DNA influence the type of reaction in the human cell?


Replies:
Most often, irradiated DNA is damaged DNA; and a virus with damaged DNA is usually less able to survive, just as a cell with damaged DNA is less able to survive. For both cells and viruses, sometimes the cell fixes the damage; and sometimes the damage changes the instructions that the DNA encodes. Cancer can result from such changes; ultraviolet light (too much sun!) can damage the cell DNA, leading to skin cancers. Viruses, too, can get changed; some such changes might result in a virus that "goofs up" the cells control machinery so much that the cell infected by the virus becomes cancerous. Ultraviolet light, X-rays and gamma rays, and quite a number of chemicals can cause such changes; so can simple errors that are made when the DNA gets copied (replicated).

Steve J Triezenberg


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