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Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 11638-11650, Vol. 80, No. 23
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01570-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309
Received 21 July 2006/ Accepted 8 September 2006
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) establishes a persistent infection in the human host and is associated with a variety of human cancers. Persistent infection results from a balance between the host immune response and viral immune evasion mechanisms. EBV infection is controlled initially by the innate immune response and later by T-cell-mediated adaptive immunity. EBV has evolved mechanisms to evade the host immune response so that it can persist for the lifetime of the host. Latent membrane protein 1 (LMP-1) is the EBV oncoprotein essential for B-cell immortalization by EBV. We show here that LMP-1 interacts with Tyk2, a signaling intermediate in the alpha interferon (IFN-
) signaling pathway, via a previously uncharacterized LMP-1 signaling domain. LMP-1 prevents Tyk2 phosphorylation and inhibits IFN-
-stimulated STAT2 nuclear translocation and interferon-stimulated response element transcriptional activity. Long-term culture of EBV+ lymphoblastoid cells in IFN-
is associated with outgrowth of a population expressing elevated LMP-1 protein levels, suggesting that cells expressing higher levels of LMP-1 survive the antiproliferative selective pressure imposed by IFN-
. These results show that LMP-1 can protect EBV+ cells from the IFN-
-stimulated antiviral/antiproliferative response and suggest that chronic IFN-
treatment may encourage the outgrowth of cells expressing elevated, and therefore potentially oncogenic, LMP-1 levels in EBV+ individuals.
Published ahead of print on 20 September 2006.
Present address: Department of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523.
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