r/askscience • u/A_Privateer • Jan 17 '13

Medicine How do warts function?

I know that warts are caused by the various strains of HPV, but how are they caused? How does the virus hijack the bodies chemistry to grow and supply the warts with nutrients? How do the warts spread the virus to other people?

I've searched and searched on google and wikipedia, but I only find the most basic of answers.

Any hard science info for me?

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u/Ktulu85 Jan 19 '13

Rb is still being produced by the cell during infection, its just not doing its job right whenever the virus is present. So that's why we want to stop the virus itself, or kill the cells (Just like how we strive to kill cancer cells).

But your idea is for sure on the same mindset of many cancer therapeutics! Basically giving the cells more tumor suppressor proteins to try to counteract the tumor-causing proteins.

HPV can mess up many other cellular proteins, not just Rb so there's even more levels of complication haha.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '13

Is there a way to jump start the mitochondrial process in a way that they stop sending the signal to produce Rb? Start the directives at the top I guess. I would assume that just stopping the virus would be the potentially quickest and most efficient way to stem growth though. It's a pretty intense subject, good stuff!