T Cell Dysfunction in Epstein-Barr Virus-Associated Lymphoma

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is thought to be one of tumorigenic viruses, which can be detected in many kinds of lymphomas, such as extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma and Burkitt lymphoma. Those EBV positive lymphomas are also called EBV-associated lymphomas. Some studies showed that patients with EBV-associated lymphoma had a worse prognosis. Dysfunction of T cells may contribute to failure of immune surveillance and tumorigenesis. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate T cell dysfunction in patients with EBV-associated lymphoma. Peripheral blood was collected from 20 patients with EBV-associated lymphoma and 10 healthy donors (healthy EBV seropositive donors) at the Peking University First Hospital. First, the phenotypes and ratios of PBMCs were analyzed using flow cytometry. Compared with healthy donors, the proportion of CD3+ T cells were little lower in the patients, but had no significantly difference (healthy donors vs patients, 47.82±6.85% vs 34.43±3.63%, p=0.09). The ratios of CD4+ T cells / CD8+ T cells were significantly decreased in the patients, the proportion of CD4+ T cells in CD3+ T cells were decreased (healthy donors vs patients, 59.40±3.84% vs 29.46±2.84%, p Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.