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
Review
. 2018 Apr 13;7(2):40.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens7020040.

The Microenvironment in Epstein-Barr Virus-Associated Malignancies

Geok Wee Tan  1 , Lydia Visser  2 , Lu Ping Tan  3   4 , Anke van den Berg  5 , Arjan Diepstra  6
Affiliations
Review

The Microenvironment in Epstein-Barr Virus-Associated Malignancies

Geok Wee Tan et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) can cause a wide variety of cancers upon infection of different cell types and induces a highly variable composition of the tumor microenvironment (TME). This TME consists of both innate and adaptive immune cells and is not merely an aspecific reaction to the tumor cells. In fact, latent EBV-infected tumor cells utilize several specific mechanisms to form and shape the TME to their own benefit. These mechanisms have been studied largely in the context of EBV+ Hodgkin lymphoma, undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and EBV+ gastric cancer. This review describes the composition, immune escape mechanisms, and tumor cell promoting properties of the TME in these three malignancies. Mechanisms of susceptibility which regularly involve genes related to immune system function are also discussed, as only a small proportion of EBV-infected individuals develops an EBV-associated malignancy.

Keywords: Epstein-Barr virus; Hodgkin lymphoma; gastric carcinoma; immune escape; susceptibility; tumor microenvironment; undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Composition of the tumor microenvironment in EBV-associated malignancies. The cellular composition of the microenvironments of typical cases of EBV+ Hodgkin lymphoma, undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma and EBV+ gastric carcinoma are shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Swerdlow S.H., Campo E., Harris N.L., Jaffe E.S., Pileri S.A., Stein H., Thiele J., editors. WHO Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. 4th ed. IARC Press; Lyon, France: 2017.
    1. El-Naggar A.K., Chan J.K.C., Grandis J.R., Takata T.S.P., editors. WHO Classification of Head and Neck Tumours. 4th ed. IARC Press; Lyon, France: 2017.
    1. Shibata D., Weiss L.M. Epstein-Barr virus-associated gastric adenocarcinoma. Am. J. Pathol. 1992;140:769–774. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2011.00005. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Young L.S., Yap L.F., Murray P.G. Epstein–Barr virus: More than 50 years old and still providing surprises. Nat. Rev. Cancer. 2016;16:789–802. doi: 10.1038/nrc.2016.92. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Scott D.W., Gascoyne R.D. The tumour microenvironment in B cell lymphomas. Nat. Publ. Gr. 2014;14:517–534. doi: 10.1038/nrc3774. - DOI - PubMed