Epstein‐barr virus genotypes in NPC biopsies from North Africa

Abstract

The genotypes of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) were investigated in North African nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) biopsies, nasopharyngeal chronic inflammation (NCI) biopsies, and saliva of healthy individuals from Algeria and Tunisia where there is an intermediate incidence of NPC. The prevalence of A-type virus in NPC, NCI biopsies and saliva of healthy individuals was found in these regions by means of a PCR assay. Restriction enzyme polymorphism analysis by Southern blotting revealed that all North African EBV variants have a conserved restriction site on BamHI W'-I' and XhoI LMP gene. No additional BamHI enzyme site on the BamHI-F fragment was observed; however, the presence of an extra BamHI site on the BamHI-H fragment giving 2 HI and H2 fragment-like EBV M-ABA strains was found. All EBV strains present in NPC or NCI biopsies at all ages were homogeneous in these polymorphisms and no correlation was observed between the EBV genotypes from NPC patients and clinical stages of the cancer. These characteristics revealed a significant difference between the EBV variants common in Chinese NPC and those in North African NPC.

The Enigmatic Epidemiology of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

“…Compared with the prototype B95.8 EBV strain, consistent nucleotide variation in the amino terminus of the oncogenic viral latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), including the loss of a XhoI restriction site, has been detected in EBV in NPC tumors from southern and northern Chinese, Malays, Alaska natives, and some U.S. Caucasians, but not North Africans (115)(116)(117)(118)(119)(120)(121)(122). Other types of sequence variation in the LMP1 carboxyl terminus-including the number of copies of a 33-bp repeat element, a 15-bp insertion in the third repeat element, and a 30-bp deletion in the carboxyl terminus-have repeatedly been detected in Chinese NPC tumors (119-121, 123, 124).…”

The LMP2A ITAM Is Essential for Providing B Cells with Development and Survival Signals In Vivo

“…Furthermore, individuals with congenital or immune deficiencies often develop EBV-associated lymphoproliferative diseases (66,81). In the oral epithelia, EBV is associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and oral hairy leukoplakia (4,35,63,71). EBV has also been found in smooth muscle tumors and in assorted lung, breast, gastric, and salivary carcinomas; however, it is unclear what role the virus plays in these cancers (2,3,11,27,31,32,43,45,64).…”

“…Spleens were dissected from animals, homogenized between the frosted edges of two microscope slides, and suspended into 10 ml of ice-cold 1ϫ phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). Samples were centrifuged at 1,500 rpm for 10 min, supernatants were poured off, and red blood cells were lysed in 5 ml of red blood cell lysis buffer (150 mM NH 4 Cl, 17 mM Tris base [pH 7.2]) for 5 min. Cell suspensions were added to 5 ml of ice-cold 1ϫ PBS through a nylon mesh.…”

Establishment of a monkey kidney epithelial cell line with the BARF1 open reading frame from Epstein-Barr Virus

“…The experimental conditions were followed as previously described (Bouzid et al, 1994) with some modi®cations. EBV DNA was ampli®ed in a ®nal reaction mixture volume of 25 ml containing: Taq polymerase bu er (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.3; 50 mM KCl), 5 mM MgCl 2 , 200 mM of each deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate, 250 nM of each EBV primer and 1 mg of DNA sample.…”

“…For ampli®ed sample analysis, 10 ml of PCR products were loaded onto 2% standard agarose gel. Electrophoresis, transfer and hybridization conditions were as already described (Bouzid et al, 1994). The entire BARF1 sequence was used as a probe.…”