EBV Conference 2008 Guangzhou - Baylor College of Medicine

101 (RegID: 1265; 1289)
Sarah Leonard
Institution: University of Birmingham
e-mail: sml661@bham.ac.uk
GENOME WIDE TRANSCRIPTIONAL AND METHYLATION PROFILING REVEALS THAT
EBV INDUCES HYPOMETHYLATION OF CELLULAR GENES IN PRIMARY B CELLS
Sarah Leonard, Wenbin Wei, Paul Murray, Ciaran Woodman
Posterabstract:
Although it is widely known that EBV can regulate its own life-cycle using the cell’s epigenetic
machinery, the impact of virus-induced epigenetic changes, such as DNA methylation on the expression of
cellular genes has received less attention.
Genome wide expression and promoter methylation arrays were used to reveal the transcriptional and
epigenetic changes which follow infection of germinal centre (GC) B cells with EBV. We have previously
shown that this cell line model recapitulates many of the transcriptional changes observed in Hodgkin’s
lymphoma (HL).
Gene expression profiling revealed a down-regulation of the DNA methyltransferases DNMT3b and
DNMT1, and up-regulation of DNMT3a in GC B cells six weeks following their infection with EBV.
These transcriptional changes were associated with hypomethylation of more than 487 cellular genes.
Methylation changes in genes previously implicated in carcinogenesis eg. CSMD1, SPRY2 and
MAGE-A3 have since been confirmed by pyrosequencing. Given that we have also observed the same
changes in transcription of these DNMTs in HL cell lines, we believe there is a compelling case for the
further investigation of the contribution of these epigenetic changes to the pathogenesis of B cell
neoplasia.
EBV Conference 2008 Guangzhou
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