Ebv Essay

Primary Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection causes infectious mononucleosis (IM) in 50% of infected adolescents and young adults. It has long been known that IM is associated with the aberrant expansion of EBV-specific CD8+ T cells, and can cause rare but serious complications, including airway obstruction, splenic rupture, and haemolytic anaemia. IM is also associated with an increased incidence of EBV-associated Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis. Despite significant research, it is not clear why some individuals are more likely than others to develop clinical symptoms. In seeking an explanation, we studied immune control during the early stages of EBV infection, before cell-mediated immune responses come into play. We hypothesized that there is a defect in immune control …show more content…
While considerable knowledge has been accumulated on T cell response during acute IM, we have little understanding of virus-specific B cell immunity during primary EBV infection. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of humoral immune responses in this project revealed that patients with acute IM have a severe deficiency of anti-EBV neutralizing antibodies, which was associated with a lack of gp350-specific B cell responses and a significant reduction in total memory B cells in peripheral blood. Furthermore, these patients also showed dysregulation of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-family members BAFF and APRIL and increased expression of FAS on circulating B cells. This impairment of anti-viral B cell responses was coincident with a dramatic loss of circulating myeloid and plasmacytoid DC numbers during acute IM, which recovered to baseline following convalescence. The loss of plasmacytoid dendritic cells was found to be much greater than that of myeloid DCs, with slower recovery with disease

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