Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
Kaposi's sarcoma(KS)-associated herpes virus (KSHV) or human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is highly associated with KS, primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), and multicentric Castleman's disease, an aggressive lymphoproliferative disorder (1-3). Most tumor cells are latently infected with KSHV in which a small subset of viral genes are expressed (4-6). Of these latently expressed genes, the latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA1, LNA, or LNA1) is the only protein consistently shown to be highly expressed by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry (7-10). In the past few years multiple functions have been demonstrated for LANA1. Here we review LANA1's roles in KSHV infection. Topics discussed include LANA1's roles in episome persistence, regulation of transcription and interaction with cellular proteins.