Prostate Cancer

And yet-as is often the case-other studies on RNASEL failed to make this link.

So the scientists wondered if the mutation was just one ingredient in the recipe for A clue to what that factor may be comes from RNASEL itself.

When it's not crippled by a mutation, the gene produces an enzyme that shreds virus genes (in particular, viruses that carry genes on single-stranded RNA as opposed to double-stranded DNA).

Viruses are known to play a role in many cancers, triggering cells to replicate like mad.

So the scientists wondered if the RNASEL mutation weakened defenses to a particular virus that could contribute to To find out, the scientists embarked on a virus hunt.

They isolated cells from prostate tumors linked to the RNASEL mutation, and split them open.

They placed the contents of the cells on a glass slide studded with 20,000 molecular probes, each tailored to snag a particular fragment of a virus gene.

The probes on this so-called Virochip are based on genes of known viruse...

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