The common denominator among people diagnosed with lupus has finally been pinned as caused by the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV), according to Stanford University researchers.
Some 95 percent of people have dormant EBV in their bodies but not all develop lupus.
“With appropriate diagnosis and medication, most lupus patients can live reasonably normal lives, but for about 5 percent of them the disorder can be life-threatening,” Robinson said. “Existing treatments slow down disease progression but don’t cure it.”
EBV is known as a herpes virus that can be transmitted through saliva and can cause mononucleosis.
Although an EBV vaccine is in the works and clinical trials are underway, Robinson advises administering any EBV vaccine that’s developed to infants soon after birth for maximum effectiveness.
“Such vaccines are unable to rid an already-infected person of the virus,” Robinson said.
Previous studies have determined that people diagnosed with lupus are also infected with EBV.
The new study results found evidence that EBV is causing lupus by infecting and reprogramming anti-nuclear auto-reactive B cells to potentially transform activated antigen-presenting cells (APC) into an autoimmune disorder.
Unless they malfunction, APCs act as a security force in the body by detecting and processing abnormal cells.
“This cascade of EBV-generated self-targeting B-cell activation might extend beyond lupus to other autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, where hints of EBV-initiated EBNA2 activity have been observed,” Robinson added.
Other authors of the abstract include Stanford University researchers and professors Shady Younis and Mahesh Pandit.
They founded a company that’s exploring an experimental lupus treatment called ultradeep B-cell depletion, which involves annihilating circulating B cells and replacing them over several months with new, EBV-free B cells from bone marrow.