Study on the Role of EBV Lytic Phase Gene BZLF1 in Regulating the Proliferation of Lung Cancer Cells Through the MAPK Pathway

Objective To investigate the regulatory mechanism of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) lytic gene BZLF1 on cell proliferation in lung cancer cells, and to provide experimental evidence for to clarify the mechanism of the EBV lytic phase gene in lung cancer cells.

Methods By constructing an exogenous lentiviral stable strain of BZLF1, human lung cancer cell lines transfected with empty vector were used as the control group, and BZLF1 was overexpressed in lung cancer cells and screened by puromycin. The cell model was constructed to observe the phenotypic effect of BZLF1 on lung cancer cells by colony formation, transwell migration and scratch test. The changes of cell cycle and MAPK signaling pathway were detected by flow cytometry and western blot, respectively.

Results After exogenous overexpression of BZLF1, the proliferation and migration ability of lung cancer cells were decreased, the cell cycle was arrested at G0/G1 phase, and the expression levels of p-ERK and Cyclin D1 were significantly down-regulated.

Conclusions BZLF1, a lytic phase gene of EBV, inhibits the proliferation of lung cancer cells by down-regulating the expression of p-ERK and Cyclin D1, which provides preliminary experimental evidence for further elucidating the mechanism of EBV lytic phase gene in lung cancer cells.