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The subjects of our research are a group of gamma-herpesviruses which are associated with malignancies and the SARS coronavirus. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with endemic Burkitt’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, nasopharygeal carcinoma, and lymphoproliferative diseases in immunodeficient patients; human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) is associated with Kaposi’s sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma and multicentric Castleman’s disease. The cause of these malignancies stems from the capacity which gammaherpesviruses have for establishing latent infection and evading/surviving immune attack. Latency is a distinctive hallmark of herpesvirus biology. One of our aims is to understand the mechanism for the establishment and maintenance of viral latency and subsequent reactivation of the lytic life cycle. Another aim is to dissect the interactions between the virus and the host immune system. To obtain insight into the virus-host interaction in vivo, we utilize murine gamma-herpesvirus 68 (MHV-68 or gHV-68), whose genomic arrangement and biological properties are closely related to HHV-8 and EBV, as a model system. Research activities on herpesviruses are organized in the following directions：
1. Molecular mechanism of the switch between latent and lytic replication
2. High-though-put genetic screen methods to identify cellular elements that control viral replication in vitro and viral elements that control viral pathogenesis in vivo
3. Expression and function of polyadenylated nuclear RNA (PAN RNA)
4. In vivo interactions between the virus and the host immune system