Student Research Committee, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
BMC Oral Health. 2021 Oct 7;21(1):502. doi: 10.1186/s12903-021-01867-8.
Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a human oncogenic virus that can lead to cancer in lymphoid and epithelial cells and is one of the hypothesized causes of oral cavity lesions including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), but the etiological association remains undetermined. The present investigation aimed to explore the EBV presence, viral load, and EBV-encoded small RNA (EBER) sequence variation in tissue samples of patients with OSCC and other oral cavity lesions including oral lichen planus (OLP), and oral irritation fibroma (OIF).
In total, 88 oral cavity samples (23 with OSCC, 29 with OLP, and 36 with OIF diagnosis) were examined by Real-Time PCR technique and some of them were sequenced.
Viral EBER sequence was detected in 6 out of the 23 OSCC (31.4%), 6 out of the 29 OLP (20.7%), and 3 out of the 36 OIF cases (8.3%). The mean EBV copy number was higher in OSCC samples (1.2 × 10 ± 1.3 × 10 copies/cell) compared to OLP (2.2 × 10- ± 2.6 × 10 copies/cell) and OIF (2.4 × 10 ± 2.0 × 10 copies/cell) samples, although this difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.318). The EBER gene was amplified and sequenced in 5 OSCC, 3 OLP, and 2 OIF samples with high EBV viral load. One OSCC, two OLP, and two OIF isolates showed different nucleotide variations compared with EBV-WT and AG876 prototype sequences: C6834T, C6870T, C6981T, C7085T, C7085G, and C7094T.
In our study the presence of more than one genome copies per tumor cell indicates the possible role of EBV infection in oral cancers. However, more studies should be conducted to clarify the role of EBV in OSCC carcinogenesis.
Epstein-Barr 病毒（EBV）是一种人类致癌病毒，可导致淋巴和上皮细胞癌变，是口腔病变包括口腔鳞状细胞癌（OSCC）的假设病因之一，但病因关联仍未确定。本研究旨在探讨组织样本中 EBV 的存在、病毒载量和 EBV 编码的小 RNA（EBER）序列变异在 OSCC 患者以及其他口腔病变包括口腔扁平苔藓（OLP）和口腔刺激纤维瘤（OIF）中的作用。
共检查了 88 例口腔样本（23 例 OSCC、29 例 OLP 和 36 例 OIF 诊断），采用实时 PCR 技术检测，并对部分样本进行测序。
23 例 OSCC 中有 6 例（31.4%）、29 例 OLP 中有 6 例（20.7%）和 36 例 OIF 中有 3 例（8.3%）检测到病毒 EBER 序列。与 OLP（2.2×10-±2.6×10 拷贝/细胞）和 OIF（2.4×10±2.0×10 拷贝/细胞）相比，OSCC 样本中的 EBV 拷贝数更高（1.2×10±1.3×10 拷贝/细胞），但差异无统计学意义（P=0.318）。在 EBV 病毒载量较高的 5 例 OSCC、3 例 OLP 和 2 例 OIF 样本中扩增和测序了 EBER 基因。1 例 OSCC、2 例 OLP 和 2 例 OIF 分离株与 EBV-WT 和 AG876 原型序列相比显示出不同的核苷酸变异：C6834T、C6870T、C6981T、C7085T、C7085G 和 C7094T。
在我们的研究中，每个肿瘤细胞中存在多个基因组拷贝表明 EBV 感染可能在口腔癌中起作用。然而，应进行更多研究以阐明 EBV 在 OSCC 癌变中的作用。
