26 jan. 2026
Leahy CI et al. (BioRxiv)
Keywords
EBV
Infectious mononucleosis
Palatine tonsils
Spatial transcriptomics
Multiplex immunofluorescence
Main Findings
Primary EBV infection following early adulthood often results in infectious mononucleosis (IM), which increases the risk of developing EBV associated cancers and autoimmune diseases later in life.
Despite the relevance of EBV in viral driven diseases, the immune dynamics of EBV infection and reservoir establishment in vivo is incompletely understood.
By performing single cell spatial transcriptomics and multiplex immunofluorescence on IM palatine tonsils, the authors identified EBV infected epithelial cells. Furthermore, a spatiotemporal transition of EBV latency programs corresponding to specific tissue microenvironments within the infected tonsils was mapped out, with LMP1+ regions being the most immunosuppressive.
Limitations
The study would benefit from increasing the number of the samples.
Some additional controls would be important to provide.
As most samples were obtained from severe primary EBV infection, it would be important to validate wether similar findings could arise from asymptomatic EBV infection.
Significance/Novelty
What is the novelty of the preprint for the field specific?
Combining single-cell spatial transcriptomics with multiplex immunofluorescence to provide new insight into the spatial and functional organization of primary EBV infections
Demonstrating in vivo that different EBV latent infection programs are localized to different cell niches and are associated with different tissue microenvironments
Further current understanding of the immune mechanisms behind viral persistence and immune evasion in EBV primary infection
Credit
Reviewed by Gavin Li as part of a cross-institutional journal club between the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of Oxford, the Karolinska Institute and the University of Toronto.
The author declares no conflict of interests in relation to their involvement in the review.