The antiviral immune forces awaken in the cancer wars

[...]almost all viruses in the human virome evade immune recognition by limiting viral replication and gene expression. The lack of viral gene expression and/or host immune tolerance leads to immune silence or an immune equilibrium state in the host. [...]viral antigens from reactivated viral gene expression in tumor cells could be recognized as tumor neoantigens to induce antitumor immune responses. Viral gene expression from HERVs are predominantly silenced by DNA methylation and histone modification, resulting in a transcriptionally inactive heterochromatic structure [21]. [...]reactivating HERVs using epigenetic drugs has been proposed to trigger antitumor immune responses [22, 23]. [...]ERV reactivation by treatment of CDK4/6 or CDK9 inhibitors significantly enhances the response rates of the current ICI therapies.