title: Epstein-Barr virus and its association with Fascin expression in colorectal cancers in the Syrian population: A tissue microarray study.
abstract: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy in both men and women worldwide. Colorectal carcinogenesis is a complex, multistep process involving environmental and lifestyle features as well as sequential genetic changes in addition to bacterial and viral infections. Viral infection has a proven role in the incidence of approximately 20% of human cancers including gastric malignancies. Accordingly, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been recently shown to be present in human gastric cancers, which could play an important role in the initiation and progression of these cancers. Therefore, this work explores the prevalence of EBV in 102 CRC tissues from the Syrian population using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and tissue microarray (TMA) analysis. We found that EBV is present in 37 (36.27%) of CRC samples. Additionally, the expression of LMP1 onco-protein of EBV was found to be correlated with Fascin expression/overexpression in the majority of CRC tissue samples, which are intermediate/high grade invasive carcinomas. Our data indicate that EBV is present in CRC and its presence is associated with more aggressive cancer phenotype. Consequently, future investigations are needed to expose the role of EBV in CRC initiation and progression.
authors.affiliation: a College of Medicine & Biomedical Research Centre , Qatar University , Doha , Qatar.
authors.forename: Noor
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Al-Antary
authors.affiliation: b Hamad Medical Corporation , Doha , Qatar.
authors.forename: Hanan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Farghaly
authors.affiliation: c Segal Cancer Centre, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital , McGill University , Montreal , QC , Canada.
authors.forename: Tahar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aboulkassim
authors.affiliation: c Segal Cancer Centre, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital , McGill University , Montreal , QC , Canada.
authors.forename: Amber
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yasmeen
authors.affiliation: d Department of Pathology , Gaziantep University , Gaziantep , Turkey.|e Oncology Department , McGill University , Montreal , QC , Canada.
authors.forename: Nizar
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3679-2359
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Akil
authors.affiliation: a College of Medicine & Biomedical Research Centre , Qatar University , Doha , Qatar.|e Oncology Department , McGill University , Montreal , QC , Canada.|f Syrian Research Cancer Centre of the Syrian Society against Cancer , Aleppo , Syria.
authors.forename: Ala-Eddin
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4452-3439
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Al Moustafa
mesh_terms: D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D020031:Epstein-Barr Virus Infections / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008840:Microfilament Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013593:Syria; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis; D014763:Viral Matrix Proteins / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; C037662:EBV-associated membrane antigen, Epstein-Barr virus; D008840:Microfilament Proteins; D014763:Viral Matrix Proteins; C020324:fascin
keywords: Cancer phenotype; EBV; Fascin; Syrian population; colorectal cancers