If you’ve had mononucleosis or the “kissing disease,” you’ve had Epstein-Barr virus, which University of Wisconsin researchers have recently found leads to certain cancers in rare cases, particularly in Southeast Asia.
EBV is one of the most common viruses humans can have, so common that more than 90 percent of people have EBV, Coral Wille, research associate and one of the primary authors of the study, said.
EBV exists in two forms that are essential to its survival, a latent form and a lytic form, Wille explained. In its latent form, the virus hides from the host’s immune system to avoid detection. EBV’s lytic forms creates new virions that allows the virus to then be spread to different hosts, Wille said. But unless the virus reverts to lytic form, the virus comes to a “dead end,” and is unable to spread itself to new hosts.
This is important because EBV’s lytic form is the one that spreads potential cancer-causing viruses to its hosts, Wille said. Once the virus has spread, it reverts back to its latent form.
“Once you get EBV, you have the infection for life,” Wille said.
Though EBV is a common infection, it rarely causes cancer, Wille said. But if EBV does result in cancer, it mostly occurs in different forms of cancer around the world. One area in particular is in Southeast Asia, where EBV can potentially develop into nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Wille said. Whether these cancers are due to environmental causes or genetics is still unknown.
Wille said her research also found a modification in how DNA is expressed in EBV, which could potentially make it more infectious and cause EBV to revert to its lytic form, spreading the cancer-causing virus.
Current graduate student in the Department of Genetics, Amanda Henning, assisted Wille in the lab with her analysis of the DNA modifications. Henning currently works in a lab researching genetic susceptibility to breast cancer.
Wille asked Henning to assist her with a technique that quantifies the amount of DNA in a given nucleotide. A technique called bisulfite pyrosequencing, Henning said.
Henning’s work with Wille turned out to be beneficial for her own work as well — while she analyzed their samples, she received additional input on her work with someone else working in epigenetics, which are changes caused by modifications of gene expressions.
To compliment her research, Wille said it would be interesting to examine other patient samples and normal human tumor samples to see if this modification that results in DNA is lost in other cancers caused by EBV.
Though EBV doesn’t cause cancer in every person, Wille said it’s a highly complex situation.
“I think we have a long way to go before we can characterize how EBV cancer develops, but I think this was an important first step,” Wille said.
This article was updated to correct EBV caused infections like mononucleosis.