Inhibition of Transfer Infection of Epstein-Barr Virus to Epithelial Cells by Integrin beta6 siRNA

ABSTRACT

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) establishes a latent infection in greater than 90% of the world's adult population and associates with various tumors. EBV primarily infects epithelial cells and B cell in vivo. Mechanism of EBV infection in B cells is known to involve binding of EBV glycoprotein gp350 to CD21 on B cell surface. Epithelial cells are infected with EBV even though most of epithelial cells do not express CD21. Recently, integrin alphavbeta5, alphavbeta6 and alphavbeta8 on epithelial cells were reported to facilitate EBV infection by interacting with gHgL complex. We examined the expression profile of integrins known to be expressed on epithelial cells. Integrin alphavbeta5 and alphavbeta6, but not alphavbeta8 were detected in a gastric epithelial cell line, AGS. We then tested whether siRNAs specific to beta6 can inhibit EBV infection of epithelial cells. One among the four tested siRNAs significantly reduced beta6 expression and suppressed transfer infection of EBV to AGS cells. Our data suggest that siRNAs to integrins might be useful to control EBV infection to epithelial cells.