Kaposi Sarcoma Herpesvirus

First detected by Chang et al. (1994) in Kaposi sarcomas associated with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) (see IARC, 1996) by representational difference analysis, this virus was termed Kaposi-sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, KSHV. KSHV is also associated with primary effusion lymphoma and some cases of multicentric Castleman disease (see Section 2). In keeping with the systematic nomenclature adopted for all human herpesviruses, the formal designation human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) was proposed by the herpesvirus subcommittee of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses. In this Monograph, the term KSHV is used throughout. On the basis of phylogenetic analyses (Moore et al., 1996a; Russo et al., 1996), KSHV is a gamma-2 herpesvirus (rhadinovirus), and represents the first ‘human’ member of this group. There are many more gamma-2 herpesvirus species in old and new world non-human primates. 1.1.2 Structure of the virion