Erle S. Robertson, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Director of Tumor Virology, with Penn's Abramson Cancer Center and MD/PhD student Jason Knight, published their results in the early March issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Using human cell cultures infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, the investigators found that a specific viral protein targets a molecule that normally regulates the cell-cycle progression, or duplication process, of resting B cells. In the presence of this viral protein called EBNA3C (for EBV nuclear antigen) the cell cycle of the usually quiescent human B cells gets a jump start, which ultimately initiates uncontrolled growth.
EBV, a member of the herpesvirus family and one of the most common human viruses, plays a role in cancers such as lymphoproliferative diseases in transplant or AIDS patients, Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and also causes the well-known disease, infectious mononucleosis. As many as 95 percent of adults 20 years and older have been infected with EBV, but show no symptoms.
"Viruses that are associated with cancers typically target the cell cycle to gain control," says Robertson. "However, this is the first time that laboratory research into how EBV drives the cancer process has directly identified a critical component of the cell cycle for control. Now we can develop targeted therapeutics to disrupt the function of this viral protein." The researchers surmise that the first use of future therapies from these studies wil
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Contact: Karen Kreeger
karen.kreeger@uphs.upenn.edu
215-349-5658
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
15-Mar-2005