Heterogeneity within the Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen 2 gene in different strains of Epstein-Barr virus

Abstract

DNA isolated from biopsies of endemic Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) from New Guinea was analysed for the presence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) sequences using the polymerase chain reaction. Primers were designed to amplify sequences within the Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen (EBNA) 1 and 2 genes. These analyses detected the EBNA1 sequence in all the biopsies studied.

EBNA3B-deficient EBV promotes B cell lymphomagenesis in humanized mice and is found in human tumors

“…The degree of polymorphism in type 1 EBVs makes identifying functional mutants in type 1 EBV difficult. This phenomenon has been previously reported in the EBNA2 and EBNA3 genes (27,28,40). We suggest that major epidemiological and functional analyses will be required to assess the natural range of EBV variation and, more importantly, to identify tumor-associated mutations.…”

Diversity of naturally occurring Epstein-Barr virus revealed by nucleotide sequence polymorphism in hypervariable domains in the BamHI K and N subgenomic regions.

“…Falk et al, 1995 ;Chen et al, 1996) and post-PCR RFLP assays (Bhatia et al, 1996). The discriminatory ranges of these procedures are finite, however, so sequencing is often required to examine further heterogeneity within the amplified fragments (Buisson et al, 1994 ;Aitken et al, 1994 ;Miller et al, 1994 ;Sandvej et al, 1994 ;Busson et al, 1995 ;Bhatia et al, 1996 ;Gutie! rrez et al, 1997).…”

“…A limitation of this approach is the potential for selection against EBV strains that transform lymphocytes either poorly, such as the type B viruses (Rickinson et al, 1987), or not at all, such as EBNA-2-deletion variants (Sixbey et al, 1991). Alternatively, EBV DNA sequences are amplified directly from a given tissue or body fluid, by procedures such as type-specific PCR (Buisson et al, 1994 ;Aitken et al, 1994 ;Menin et al, 1996), post-PCR type-specific oligonucleotide probing (Sixbey et al, 1989 ;Yao et al, 1991 ;Apolloni & Sculley, 1994), gel-electrophoretic analysis of size polymorphisms of PCR products (Lin et al, 1993 ;Miller et al, 1994 ; CIBD D. Triantos and others D. Triantos and others Fig. 2.…”

“…Hypervariability has thus been identified in the following regions : the C-terminal domain of the EBNA-1 ORF in the BamHI K region (Wrightham et al, 1995 ;Snudden et al, 1995 ;Bhatia et al, 1996 ;Gutie! rrez et al, 1997) ; the EBNA-2 gene, which is located in the BamHI WYH region (Aitken et al, 1994) ; several domains in the BamHI N region, including the LMP-1 gene (Miller et al, 1994), the N terminus of the LMP-2A gene (Busson et al, 1995), and an approximately 300 bp region upstream of the LMP-1 start codon (Hu et al, 1991) ; and the BZLF-1 gene (Packham et al, 1993).…”

TT virus sequence heterogeneity in vivo: evidence for co-infection with multiple genetic types.

“…Although many DNA viruses, such as human herpesviruses (Smith & Inglis, 1987 ;Ablashi et al, 1993 ;Aitken et al, 1994 ;Busson et al, 1995 ;Meyer-Konig et al, 1998 ;Triantos et al, 1998), JC virus (Agostini et al, 1997) and papillomaviruses (Ong et al, 1993 ;Pushko et al, 1994 ;Chan et al, 1995) exhibit some genetic heterogeneity, by comparison the amount of variability observed in TTV is very high. There are at least two possible explanations for this.…”