Epstein Barr Virus detection and latent membrane protein 1 in oral hairyleukoplakia in HIV + Venezuelan patients

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) in oral hairy leukoplakia lesions (OHL) inHIV+ Venezuelan patients. Material and Method: In this case study, we evaluated 21 HIV+ adult patients withclinically present OHL lesions, 11 who were undergoing antiretroviral therapy, 10 who were not undergoingtherapy and 10 HIV-negative adult patients with hyperkeratotic oral mucosal lesions. All of the subjects were assessedat the Infectious Disease Center, Faculty of Dentistry, Central University of Venezuela, and were clinicallyexamined to detect oral mucosal lesions with the confirmed histopathologic diagnosis. Nested-PCR was used todetermine the EBV infection and the latent membrane protein-1 (LMP-1) expression by immunohistochemistry.Results: Of the subjects, 16/21 (76%) of the HIV+/AIDS patients tested positive for EBV, whereas 5/10 (50%) ofthe HIV-negative subjects tested positive for EBV. Conclusions: In the present study, a higher EBV prevalence wasobserved in HIV-positive patients when compared to HIV-negative patients without oral hairy leukoplakia, confirmingthe etiologic role in this entity. The LMP-1 in OHL patients who were both HIV+ and EBV+ was highlyexpressed (60%) at the epithelial basal cells. No association between the alcohol and tobacco consumption wasobserved among the EBV-positive cases (AU)