Epstein-Barr virus infection mediated TP53 and Bcl-2 expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma pathogenesis

Chittibabu Vatte; Ali M Al-Amri; Cyril Cyrus; Shahanas Chathoth; Arafat Ahmad; Ahmed Alsayyah; Amein Al-Ali

doi:10.3892/mco.2021.2422

Epstein-Barr virus infection mediated TP53 and Bcl-2 expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma pathogenesis

Mol Clin Oncol. 2021 Dec;15(6):260. doi: 10.3892/mco.2021.2422. Epub 2021 Oct 19.

Authors

Chittibabu Vatte¹, Ali M Al-Amri², Cyril Cyrus¹, Shahanas Chathoth¹, Arafat Ahmad¹, Ahmed Alsayyah³, Amein Al-Ali¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Internal Medicine, King Fahd Hospital of the University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Al-Khobar 31952, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Pathology, King Fahd Hospital of the University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Al-Khobar 31952, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Epstein Barr virus (EBV) stimulates neoplastic transformation of nasopharyngeal epithelial cells through various molecular mechanisms, predominantly affecting inactivation of tumor-suppressor genes and activation of oncogenes. EBV infection is a major risk factor for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), yet its role in the carcinogenesis is not clear. EBV infection alters the expression of antiapoptotic proteins and tumor suppressor proteins. Therefore, this study investigated the correlation between EBV infection status with B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) and TP53 protein expression amongst laryngeal and nasopharyngeal cancer cases. This study was performed using 22 nasopharyngeal and 11 laryngeal cancer cases. EBV infection status, TP53 and Bcl-2 protein expression was studied using immunohistochemistry. The majority of the laryngeal cancer cases exhibited a poor prognosis and presented low Bcl-2 expression. A total of 22.7% cases were infected with EBV in the NPC cases. Upregulated TP53 expression was associated with EBV infection in the NPC cohort, and EBV infection was correlated with TP53 upregulation in the patients with NPC, suggesting mutual regulation between TP53 and EBV.

Keywords: Epstein Barr virus; TP53; nasopharyngeal cancer; overexpression; prognosis.

Grants and funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (grant nos. 2016-090-IRMC and 2016-111-Med).