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Epstein–Barr virus strains and variations: Geographic or disease‐specific variants?
Author(s) -
Neves Marco,
MarinhoDias Joana,
Ribeiro Joana,
Sousa Hugo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.24633
Subject(s) - virology , nasopharyngeal carcinoma , biology , epstein–barr virus , mononucleosis , virus , disease , genome , population , lymphoma , genetics , immunology , gene , medicine , environmental health , pathology , radiation therapy
The Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV) is associated with the development of several diseases, including infectious mononucleosis (IM), Burkitt's Lymphoma (BL), Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, and other neoplasias. The publication of EBV genome 1984 led to several studies regarding the identification of different viral strains. Currently, EBV is divided into EBV type 1 (B95‐8 strain) and EBV type 2 (AG876 strain), also known as type A and type B, which have been distinguished based upon genetic differences in the Epstein–Barr nuclear antigens (EBNAs) sequence. Several other EBV strains have been described in the past 10 years considering variations on EBV genome, and many have attempted to clarify if these variations are ethnic or geographically correlated, or if they are disease related. Indeed, there is an increasing interest to describe possible specific disease associations, with emphasis on different malignancies. These studies aim to clarify if these variations are ethnic or geographically correlated, or if they are disease related, thus being important to characterize the epidemiologic genetic distribution of EBV strains on our population. Here, we review the current knowledge on the different EBV strains and variants and its association with different diseases. J. Med. Virol. 89:373–387, 2017 . © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.