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Updated: Oct 27, 2025

Isolation and Quantification of Epstein-Barr Virus from the P3HR1 Cell Line
Published on: September 28, 2022
Characterization of a cancer-associated Epstein-Barr virus EBNA1 variant reveals a novel interaction with PLOD1 and
Kathy Shire1, Edyta Marcon2, Jack Greenblatt3
1Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, 661 University Ave, Suite 1600, Toronto, ON, M5G 1M1, Canada.
Abstract:
Whole genome sequence analysis of Epstein-Barr virus genomes from tumours and healthy individuals identified three amino acid changes in EBNA1 that are strongly associated with gastric carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Here we show that, while these mutations do not impact EBNA1 plasmid maintenance function, one of them (Thr85Ala) decreases transcriptional activation and results in a gain of function interaction with PLOD1 and PLOD3. PLOD family proteins are strongly linked to multiple cancers, and PLOD1 is recognized as a prognostic marker of gastric carcinoma. We identified the PLOD1 binding site in EBNA1as the N-terminal transactivation domain and show that lysine 83 is critical for this interaction. The results provide a novel link between EBV infection and the cancer-associated PLOD proteins.
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