Coral K. Wille, PhD

Research Title: Cytosine Modification of the Epstein-Barr Viral Genome Affects Lytic Reactivation and Helps Enforce Latency Type

Research Summary: Coral Wille examined how cytosine methylation and 5’-hydroxycytosine methylation of the EBV genome affected the ability of the two EBV immediate-early viral proteins, BZLF1 and BRLF1, to activate early lytic viral promoters. Coral showed that the ability of BZLF1 to activate most early lytic EBV promoters is increased by cytosine methylation of these promoters, whereas methylation inhibits the ability of BRLF1 to activate the same early lytic viral promoters. She then showed that an EBV-infected telomerase immortalized keratinocyte cell line containing a hypomethylated EBV genome can only be lytically reactivated by expression of the BRLF1 (and not BZLF1) protein).