[Chiba Medical Society Young Investigator Award Minireview] Epigenetic contribution to tumorigenesis of host cells by Epstein-Barr virus infection

[ABSTRACT] Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is known as an oncogenic virus and causes tumors in a variety of tissues, including lymphocytes and epithelial cells. EBV infects host cells latently as an episome and affects the host genome and epigenome while switching between three types of latent stages and a lytic stage. In recent years, the development of analytic methods using next generation sequencing and chromosome conformation capture technologies has enabled us to identify abnormalities at the molecular level in cancer cells. In EBV-positive tumors, pigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation, viral miRNA-mediated expression changes, and aberrations in histone modification and 3D chromatin structure, together with the involvement of EBV, have been revealed by analysis of tumor cells and in vitro EBV infection experiments. Further understanding of host-EBV interactions and their roles in the cancer pathogenesis is expected to lead to the development of revolutionary therapies targeting the epigenome. Here we review epigenetic contribution to tumorigenesis by EBV infection in host cells.