Human gammaherpesviruses are associated with the development of lymphoproliferative diseases and B cell lymphomas, particularly in immunosuppressed hosts. Understanding the molecular mechanisms by which human gammaherpesviruses cause disease is hampered by the lack of convenient small animal models to study them. However, infection of laboratory strains of mice with the rodent virus murine gamm...

EBNA-3A, -3B, and -3C are three latent infection nuclear proteins important for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-induced B-cell immortalization and the immune response to EBV infection. All three are hypothesized to function as transcriptional transactivators, but little is known about their precise mechanism of action or their role in EBV pathogenesis. We have cloned and studied the three EBNA-3 homol...

Carcinogenesis involves a multistep process whereby a normal healthy cell undergoes both immortalization and oncogenesis to become fully transformed. Immortalization results from the subversion of critical cell cycle regulatory checkpoints, thereby allowing a cell to extend its finite life span and to maintain telomeric length. Oncogenesis is the manifestation of additional genetic events that ...

Progression to malignancy requires that cells overcome senescence and switch to an immortal phenotype. Thus, exploring the genetic and epigenetic changes that occur during senescence/immortalization may help elucidate crucial events that lead to cell transformation. In the present study, we have globally profiled DNA methylation in relation to gene expression in primary, senescent and immortali...

Carcinogenesis involves a multistep process whereby a normal healthy cell undergoes both immortalization and oncogenesis to become fully transformed. Immortalization results from the subversion of critical cell cycle regulatory checkpoints, thereby allowing a cell to extend its finite life span and to maintain telomeric length. Oncogenesis is the manifestation of additional genetic events that ...

Immortality is an essential characteristic of human carcinoma cells. We recently developed an efficient, reproducible method that immortalizes human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) in the absence of gross genomic changes by targeting 2 critical senescence barriers. Consistent transcriptomic changes associated with immortality were identified using microarray analysis of isogenic normal finite p...