Epstein-Barr virus variation in people living with human immunodeficiency virus in southeastern China

Abstract

Background Patients infected with HIV are at high risk of developing Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)-related diseases. The genotype and viral biological behavior of EBV infection in patients with human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) in China remain unclear. This study analyzed the characteristics of EBV in patients infected with HIV in southeastern China. Methods A total of 162 HIV-infected patients and 52 patients without HIV were enrolled in this study. EBV viral load in blood was determined by fluorescence quantitative PCR. EBV typing was performed using saliva according to polymorphisms in the EBNA3C region. EBV LMP-1 carboxy terminus (C-ter) was sequenced, and compared with the epidemic strains in the world. Results Among HIV infected patients, the EBV strain variant was mainly EBV-1, while EBV-2 had a higher viral load than EBV-1 (P = 0.001) and EBV-1/2 (P = 0.002). HIV infected patients had higher active virus replication. The EBV LMP-1 variants were mainly the China1 variant. HIV-infected patients had different nucleic acid positions of 30-bp deletion (del30) and had a higher incidence of high 33-bp tandem repeats (rep33) copies than non-HIV-infected patients. There was a difference in the mutations of EBV LMP-1 C-ter del30 and ins15 between HIV infected patients and the control group (P < 0.001). Conclusion In southeastern China, EBV in HIV-infected patients had higher active virus replication; EBV infection was mainly EBV-1, and EBV-2 infection has higher EBV virus load; hotspot mutations of LMP-1 C-ter were different between HIV-infected patients and non-HIV-infected patients. Trial registration: This study was approved by the ethics committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine (Approval No. 2018764), and registered in Chinese Clinical Trial Registry on 3 June 2019 (ChiCTR, ChiCTR1900023600, http://www.chictr.org.cn/usercenter.aspx).

Genotype characterization of Epstein–Barr virus among adults living with human immunodeficiency virus in Ethiopia

“…In this study of Ethiopian PWH, EBV genotype 1 was predominant, followed by EBV genotype 2, and there was a mixed infection of both genotypes in PWH only. This finding is comparable with previously reported results in different studies (Correa et al, 2007;Smatti et al, 2018;Monteiro et al, 2020;Tabibzadeh et al, 2020;Liao et al, 2022;Wan et al, 2023). In contrast to our study, a prior report showed that EBV genotype 2 predominated over EBV genotype 1 and mixed infection of both genotypes (Sculley et al, 1990;van Baarle et al, 2000;Santos et al, 2014).…”

“…This finding is comparable to a previous study (Pereira et al, 2022). In contrast to our study, a study of PWH in China found higher EBV viral loads to be associated with EBV genotype 2 (Wan et al, 2023). The geographic context may play an important role in the distribution of genotype frequency in PWH.…”

“…In our study, only HIV-positive individuals showed evidence of a mixed infection of both genotypes. The presence of mixed infections in PWH has also been previously reported in other studies (Polz et al, 2014;Wan et al, 2023). Characteristics of EBV in immunocompromised and normal control individuals suggest that acquired immunodeficiency leads to more frequent reactivations and higher levels of virus replication (Walling et al, 2003).…”

“…The EBV genotype among people with HIV (PWH) showed that EBV genotype 1 was predominant, followed by EBV genotype 2 and mixed infection (Pereira et al, 2022;Wan et al, 2023). Some studies have found that EBV genotype 2 or mixed infection is more frequently found in immunosuppressed patients, indicating that host immune function could influence the reactivation or latency of EBV infection (Chang et al, 2009;Neves et al, 2017).…”

Genotypes Distribution of Epstein–Barr Virus among Lymphoma Patients in Ethiopia

“…Some reports suggest that coinfection with EBV type 1 and type 2 is possible in immunocompromised patients, indicating infection with EBV type 2 may be acquired during the patient's immunocompromised state [52,60]. Higher coinfection rates with both EBV types were determined on HIV patients from studies conducted in Argentina (32.6%) [61], China (12.96%) [62], and Brazil (26.32%) [52] compared to our coinfection report (9.7%).…”