The infectivity of a virus is determined by its ability to
avoid the whole machinery of the host cell defense presented. Vaccinia virus
(orthopoxvirus family of which belongs to the virus which causes smallpox)
exhibits a surprising: it is able to induce motility of cells infected, as
evidenced by work done in the Motility Laboratory Cellular Cancer Research in
London. The first author of an article published in Science, Ferran Valderrama,
is a Spanish left the ranks of the Institute of Biomedical Research August Pi I
Sunyer, University of Barcelona and is currently studying in the English
capital, the cellular mechanisms involved in cancer .

The effect described is exercised by the virus interacting directly and
specifically with the activity of Rhea, a protein involved in intracellular
signaling. Among the essential functions of Rhea stresses the participation in
the control of the motor ability of the cells through a process that regulates
the internal architecture of the cytoskeleton.

This team has observed that the vaccinia F11L protein highly conserved
throughout the orthopoxvirus family, interacts directly with Rhea, in a way that
mimics the interaction Rhea / ROCK (protein kinase involved in the organization
of the cytoskeleton). The induction of cell motility that results from this
interaction accelerates the spread of infection to other host tissues affected.

For those who sign the work, action exerted by vaccinia and its impact on the
cell may be key to understanding cancer, due to the involvement of Rhea in the
oncogenic mechanism. The small GTPase involved in regulating the cytoskeleton
might participate indirectly in the cellular response to stress and directly in
gene expression and cell proliferation. Its relationship to oncogenesis support
it comments on its overexpression in breast and colon cancers lung, among other
carcinomas.