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. 2001 Apr;84(7):920–925. doi: 10.1054/bjoc.2000.1687

The latency pattern of Epstein–Barr virus infection and viral IL-10 expression in cutaneous natural killer/T-cell lymphomas

Z-G Xu 1, K Iwatsuki 2, N Oyama 1, M Ohtsuka 1, M Satoh 1, S Kikuchi 1, H Akiba 1, F Kaneko 1
PMCID: PMC2363835  PMID: 11286472

Abstract

The nasal type, extranodal natural killer or T(NK/T)-cell lymphoma is usually associated with latent Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection. In order to elucidate the EBV gene expression patterns in vivo, we examined eight patients with cutaneous EBV-related NK/T-cell lymphomas, including six patients with a NK-cell phenotype and two patients with a T-cell phenotype. The implication of EBV in the skin lesions was determined by the presence of EBV-DNA, EBV-encoded nuclear RNA (EBER) and a clonality of EBV-DNA fragments containing the terminal repeats. Transcripts of EBV-encoded genes were screened by reverse transcription- polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and confirmed by Southern blot hybridization. The expression of EBV-related antigens was examined by immunostaining using paraffin-embedded tissue sections and cell pellets of EBV-positive cell lines. Our study demonstrated that all samples from the patients contained EBV nuclear antigen (EBNA)-1 mRNA which was transcribed using the Q promoter, whereas both the Q promoter and another upstream promoter (Cp/Wp) were used in EBV-positive cell lines, B95.8, Raji and Jiyoye. Latent membrane protein-1 (LMP-1) mRNA was detected in seven of eight patients and all cell lines, whereas EBNA-2 transcripts were found only in the cell lines. Immunostaining showed no LMP-1, EBNA-2 or ZEBRA antigens in the paraffin-embedded tissue sections, although they were positive in the cell line cells. Latent BHRF1 transcripts encoding bcl-2 homologue and BCRF1 transcripts encoding viral interleukin (vIL)-10 were detected in one and two of eight patients, respectively. A patient with NK-cell lymphoma expressing both transcripts died of rapid progression of the illness. Our results indicate that the restricted expression of the latency-associated EBV genes and the production of vIL-10 and bcl-2 homologue may favour tumour growth, evading the host immune surveillance. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com

Keywords: Epstein–Barr virus, NK/T-cell lymphomas, latency, viral IL-10, bcl-2 homologue, LMP, EBNA

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Selected References

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