An 8-year-old African boy presents with swelling in his jaw and massive facial disfiguration. Biopsy reveals a tumor invading the bone marrow of the jaw. The pathogenesis of this malignant neoplasm is associated with a virus that exhibits a tropism for which of the following cells?
High-Yield Explanation
Four DNA viruses (human papillomavirus, Epstein-Barr virus , hepatitis B virus, and herpesvirus-8) are incriminated in the development of human cancers. EBV was the first virus to be unequivocally linked to the development of a human tumor. African Burkitt lymphoma is a B-cell tumor, in which the neoplastic lymphocytes invariably contain EBV in their DNA and manifest EBV-related antigens.