Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2004 May;57(5):487-91.
doi: 10.1136/jcp.2003.014068.

Epstein-Barr virus in gastric carcinomas and gastric stump carcinomas: a late event in gastric carcinogenesis

A Zur Hausen  1 , B P van Rees, J van Beek, M E Craanen, E Bloemena, G J A Offerhaus, C J L M Meijer, A J C van den Brule
Affiliations

Epstein-Barr virus in gastric carcinomas and gastric stump carcinomas: a late event in gastric carcinogenesis

A Zur Hausen et al. J Clin Pathol. 2004 May.

Abstract

Background: To determine at what stage during gastric carcinogenesis Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) enters the gastric epithelial cells, the presence of EBV was investigated in two pathogenetically related but distinct forms of adenocarcinoma of the stomach-gastric carcinoma of the intact stomach (GCIS) and gastric stump carcinoma (GSC)-and their presumed precursor lesions.

Patients and methods: Eleven patients with EBV positive GCIS and eight patients with EBV positive GSC, demonstrated by the highly sensitive EBV encoded RNA 1/2 (EBER1/2) RNA in situ hybridisation (RISH) technique, were studied. Paraffin wax embedded tissue available from preoperative gastric biopsies and tumour adjacent tissue from the resection specimens containing normal gastric mucosa, inflamed gastric mucosa, and preneoplastic lesions (intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia) was investigated by EBER1/2 RISH, in addition to EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA-1) and latent membrane protein 1 (LMP-1) immunohistochemistry (IHC).

Results: In both GCIS and GSC and their precursor lesions EBER1/2 transcripts were restricted to the carcinoma cells. In addition, positivity of EBNA-1 IHC was also restricted to the tumour cells. IHC for LMP-1 was negative in all cases tested.

Conclusions: The absence of EBER1/2 transcripts in preneoplastic gastric lesions (intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia) and their presence in two distinct types of gastric carcinoma strongly suggest that EBV can only infect neoplastic gastric cells and thus is a late event in gastric carcinogenesis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) encoded RNA 1/2 (EBER1/2) RNA in situ hybridisation in a gastric carcinoma of the intact stomach revealing specific EBER1/2 transcripts (dark) in the nuclei of the tumour cells. A corresponding slide shows (B) tumour cells with specific nuclear expression of EBV nuclear antigen 1 (dark brown), whereas (C) staining for latent membrane protein 1 is negative. (D) Expression of CD21 (brown) is restricted to dendritic cells, whereas the overlying gastric epithelium is negative.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) encoded RNA 1/2 (EBER1/2) positive tumour cells (dark brown) of a gastric stump carcinoma (GSC) adjacent to EBER1/2 negative gastric epithelium with intestinal metaplasia. (B) EBER1/2 positive tumour cells (dark brown) of a GSC adjacent to EBER1/2 negative overlying gastric epithelium
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. World Health Organisation. Classification of tumours. Pathology and genetics, tumours of the digestive system. Lyon: IARC, 2000.
    1. Schlemper RJ, Kato Y, Stolte M. Review of histological classifications of gastrointestinal epithelial neoplasia: differences in diagnosis of early carcinomas between Japanese and Western pathologists. J Gastroenterol 2001;36:445–56. - PubMed
    1. Shibata D, Weiss LM. Epstein-Barr virus-associated gastric adenocarcinoma. Am J Pathol 1992;140:769–74. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Takano Y, Kato Y, Saegusa M, et al. The role of the Epstein-Barr virus in the oncogenesis of EBV(+) gastric carcinomas. Virchows Arch 1999;434:17–22. - PubMed
    1. Takada K. Epstein-Barr virus and gastric carcinoma. Mol Pathol 2000;53:255–61. - PMC - PubMed

Substances