EBV, where are you hiding?

This project is suitable for an Honours students.

Background:

Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) is a common human viral infection that is most well known as the cause of infectious mononucleosis/glandular fever. Following acute exposure, EBV establishes lifelong latent infection in B cell lymphocytes with periodic stages of reactivation that lead to viral shedding. While benign in nature in the majority of the world’s population, EBV is associated with a number of human cancers and other diseases in people with compromised immune systems. EBV has more recently been shown to have a causal role in the development of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Unlike EBV-associated cancer in which elevated levels of EBV viral DNA circulate in the bloodstream and EBV gene expression can be detected in cancer cells, the specific causal role of EBV in MS remains ill-defined, particularly because of the difficulty in detecting if EBV loads are elevated in MS patients compared to control healthy volunteers. This study will look to develop a new approach to the isolation of circulating EBV-latently infected B cells.

Aim/s:

1. To establish a protocol to isolate EBV-infected B cells from the circulation of GFP-expressing EBV-infected humanised mice.
2. To adapt the protocol for isolation of EBV-infected B cells from humanised mice to peripheral blood samples from people latently infected with EBV.

Methods:

1. Flow cytometric analysis to define and isolate distinct populations of B cells.
2. Quantitative PCR to look for the presence of the EBV genome and EBV gene expression in B cell populations.  

 Project potential:

In order to better understand the role of EBV in diseases such as MS, we need new approaches to define both the burden of EBV-infection in patients and differences between infected cells from patients and healthy controls. This project will be a critical first step in the isolation of EBV-infected cells providing a platform for subsequent multi-omic approaches to further investigate these differences.