Viral mimicry escape as a necessary feature of malignant transformation.

Viral mimicry escape is a necessary feature of malignant transformation, enabling cancer cells to evade immune responses and promote tumor progression.

• Why it matters: Understanding how cancer cells suppress viral mimicry is crucial because this process can eliminate precancerous cells and influence tumor evolution, yet cancer cells develop mechanisms to evade it.
• What they did: The authors review how cancer-associated epigenetic and RNA processing changes lead to immunogenic nucleic acids that activate viral mimicry pathways, and how cancer cells suppress these pathways through epigenetic repression, RNA editing, nucleic acid decay, and dampened interferon signalling.
• The result: Escaping viral mimicry appears fundamental for cancer initiation and progression, suggesting that targeting viral mimicry escape mechanisms could enhance immunotherapy strategies.