Blood-vessel-lining cells that are infected with the virus that causes the skin tumor Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) appear to transform into the type of cells that usually line lymphatic vessels. The report from researchers at the Cutaneous Biology Research Center (CBRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will appear in an upcoming issue of Nature Genetics and is being released online today. “Our study suggests, for the first time, that Kaposi’s sarcoma tumors are derived from blood vessel endothelial [lining] cells that have been reprogrammed by infection with the Kaposi’s sarcoma herpes virus,” says Michael Detmar, MD, of the MGH CBRC, who led the research team. “This infection ‘turns on’ genes associated with lymphatic vessel development and ‘switches off’ blood vessel genes.”
