Screening and functional analysis of differentially expressed genes in an animal model of EBV -associated lymphomas

(EBV) is an important human oncogenic virus. This paper is to explore how EBV induce malignant transformation of human lymphocytes and the related mechanism of lymphomagenesis. We have constructed and established a model of EBV-associated human-derived lymphomas. By using Agilent human whole genome microarray and a series of bioinformatic analyses, a total of 202 differentially expressed genes were screened from the EBV-induced lymphomas in , including 44 up-regulated and 158 down-regulated genes. Calculation of the rank score (RS) values of these genes in the HIPPIE protein interaction networks showed that topoisomerase II alpha (TOP2A), ubiquitin like with PHD and ring finger domains 1 (UHRF1), histone cluster 2 H2B family member E (HIST2H2BE), phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), vinculin (VCL), insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R), Fos proto-oncogene (FOS), snail family transcriptional repressor 1 (SNAI1), PDZ binding kinase (PBK), and ring finger protein 144B (RNF144B) were the top 10 key node genes of EBV-induced lymphoma. In which, PBK, an up-regulated genes with the highest number of GO annotations, was verified by cellular function experiments and clinical lymphoma samples.