The Plasma Level of Interleukin-1 beta Can Be a Biomarker of Angiopathy in Systemic Chronic Active Epstein-Barr Virus Infection

Systemic chronic active Epstein-Barr virus infection (sCAEBV) is an EBV-positive T- or NK-cell neoplasm revealing persistent systemic inflammation. Twenty-five percent of sCAEBV patients accompany angiopathy. It is crucial to clarify the mechanisms of angiopathy development in sCAEBV because angiopathy is one of the main causes of death. Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta) is reported to be involved in angiopathy onset. We investigated if IL-1 beta plays a role as the inducer of angiopathy of sCAEBV. We detected elevated IL-1 beta levels in four out of 17 sCAEBV patient's plasma. Interestingly, three out of the four had clinically associated angiopathy. None of the other patients with undetectable level of IL-1 beta had angiopathy. In all patients with high plasma levels of IL-1 beta and vascular lesions, EBV-infected cells were CD4-positive T cells. In one patient with high plasma IL-1 beta, the level of IL-1 beta mRNA of the monocytes was 17.2 times higher than the level of the same patient's EBV-infected cells in peripheral blood. In Ea.hy926 cells, which are the models of vascular endothelial cells, IL-1 beta inhibited the proliferation and induced the surface coagulation activity. IL-1 beta is a potent biomarker and a potent therapeutic target to treat sCAEBV accompanying angiopathy.