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Jared Hawkins, B.S., Cell & Molecular Biology, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY EBV encodes latent proteins that have the signaling capacity to provide long term growth and survival signals to otherwise normal infected cells. Because of its ability to drive cellular growth, EBV is a risk factor for oncogenesis and consequently has been implicated in several important human cancers. However its ability to provide survival signals also makes it a potential risk factor for auto immune disease by allowing the survival of autoreactive B cells that would otherwise be deleted. Consequently EBV has been suggested as a risk factor for several autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis and lupus. However, mechanistic data for such a link is lacking. Through our studies of EBV infected B cells in vivo I am now in a position to address this question by isolating single infected B cells and studying the nature of their expressed immunoglobulin genes for evidence of autoreactivity. |
