Our laboratory investigates the role of the Epstein-Barr virus in the etiology of human disease. EBV is a ubiquitous infectious agent, which is associated with specific malignancies including Burkitt’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), which develop with high incidence in endemic areas. EBV is etiologic for post-transplant lymphoma and also causes the AIDS-associated disease, hairy leukoplakia (HLP). We have identified three viral genes, which are consistently expressed and have identified a new family of transcripts that are expressed at particularly high levels in NPC tissue. These new mRNAs are intricately spliced and contain several new open reading frames which could potentially code for protein. We have shown one of these open reading frames does encode a protein that is expressed at high levels in EBV associated cancers. Current studies are investigating the potential functions of this gene using the two hybrid analysis in yeast cells and by determining its intracellular location with confocal microscopy.,Our laboratory investigates the role of the Epstein-Barr virus in the etiology of human disease. EBV is a ubiquitous infectious agent, which is associated with specific malignancies including Burkitt’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), which develop with high incidence in endemic areas. EBV is etiologic for post-transplant lymphoma and also causes the AIDS-associated disease, hairy leukoplakia (HLP). We have identified three viral genes, which are consistently expressed and have identified a new family of transcripts that are expressed at particularly high levels in NPC tissue. These new mRNAs are intricately spliced and contain several new open reading frames which could potentially code for protein. We have shown one of these open reading frames does encode a protein that is expressed at high levels in EBV associated cancers. Current studies are investigating the potential functions of this gene using the two hybrid analysis in yeast cells and by determining its intracellular location with confocal microscopy.
