Latent infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with several human cancers, including nasopharyngeal cancer. During latent EBV infections, the glycine-alanine repeat (GAr) domain of the EBV nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA1) inhibits translation of EBNA1 mRNA, thereby suppressing the production of antigenic peptides that the human immune system recognises as foreign. Here, Blondel et al. establish a yeast-based assay that recapitulates GAr-mediated suppression of EBNA1 mRNA translation and use it to identify doxorubicin and its active analogues as compounds that specifically interfere with GAr-mediated suppression of translation. Importantly, in mammalian cells, doxorubicin and its analogues stimulate EBNA1 expression in a GAr-dependent manner and overcome the GAr-dependent restriction of antigen presentation. Together, these results validate the yeast-based assay as an effective cell-based screening approach for compounds that interfere with EBV immune evasion and that might, therefore, provide treatments for EBV-related diseases, including cancer. Page 435
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High-dose vitamin B1 therapy prevents the development of experimental fatty liver driven by overnutrition
Vitamin B1 is shown to prevent nutrition-induced fatty liver in our current Editor’s choice by Hay Davir and his colleagues, when they use sheep as a large-animal model for studying the disease.
Find out more in an interview with the paper's first authors, Mugagga Kalyesubula and Ramgopal Mopuri.
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Call for papers - The RAS Pathway: Diseases, Therapeutics and Beyond
Our upcoming special issue is welcoming submissions until 3 May 2021. Guest-edited by Donita Brady (Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Arvin Dar (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA), the issue will focus on targeting the RAS pathway.
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