Expression profile of latent and lytic transcripts of epstein-barr virus in patients with gastroduodenal diseases: a study from northern India

Abstract

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been shown to be associated with gastric cancer. However, inconsistent findings have been reported regarding the EBV reactivation in gastric cancer and non-carcinomatous gastric epithelium. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate the effect of clinicopathological findings on the expression of different transcripts of EBV in patients with gastric cancer, peptic ulcer, and dyspepsia. A total of 200 adult patients (dyspepsia [120], peptic ulcer [30], gastric cancer [50]) undergoing upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were enrolled. EBV infection was diagnosed with non-polymorphic Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen1 (EBNA1) gene based PCR and confirmed by real-time PCR. The transcripts of EBV were detected by real-time RT-PCR. In patients with gastric cancer and peptic ulcer, EBV DNA was detected more often than in those with dyspepsia (P < 0.05). EBNA1 transcript was detected in all EBV positive cases and its expression was neither associated with disease nor with histopathological findings. The expression of BZLF1 was significantly associated with gastric cancer and peptic ulcer compared to dyspepsia (P < 0.01). BZLF1 expression was also found to be higher in Helicobacter pylori infected patients (P = 0.058). Expression of BARF1 and BcLF1 were significantly higher in gastric epithelium of patients having severe grade chronic inflammation (P = 0.05) and gastric atrophy (P = 0.02), respectively. In conclusion, increased expression of lytic transcripts in patients with gastric cancer, peptic ulcer, gastric atrophy, chronic inflammation and H. pylori infection suggests the association of these factors with EBV reactivation.