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Human genetic variants of homologous recombination repair genes first found to be associated with Epstein–Barr virus antibody titers in healthy Cantonese
Author(s) -
Shen GuoPing,
Pan QingHua,
Hong MingHuang,
Qin HaiDe,
Xu YaFei,
Chen LiZhen,
Feng QiSheng,
Jorgensen Timothy J.,
Shugart Yin Yao,
Zeng YiXin,
Jia WeiHua
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.25759
Subject(s) - serostatus , biology , virus , population , epstein–barr virus , lytic cycle , antibody , virology , gene , nasopharyngeal carcinoma , immunology , allele , genetics , medicine , viral load , environmental health , radiation therapy
Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection is a major risk factor for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Despite high prevalence of infection among the general population worldwide, only a small proportion of infected individuals presents with seropositivity for EBV‐specific IgA antibodies. This seropositive subgroup of EBV carriers has an elevated cumulative risk for NPC during their lifetime. Previous studies reported that the host homologous recombination repair (HRR) system participates in EBV lytic replication, suggesting a potential mechanism to influence EBV reactivation status and thus seropositivity. To investigate whether genetic variants of HRR genes are associated with the serostatus in a healthy population, we investigated the association between seropositivity for anti‐VCA‐IgA and 156 tagging SNPs in 35 genes connected with HRR in an observational study among 755 healthy Cantonese speakers in southern China. Six variant alleles of MDC1 , RAD54L , TP53BP1 , RPA1 , LIG3 and RFC1 exhibited associations with seropositivity ( p trend from 0.0085 to 0.00027). Our study provides evidence that genetic variation within the HRR might affect an individual's propensity for EBV seropositive status of anti‐VCA IgA antibody.