In this study, we investigated the presence of HIV-1 Tat within BL tumor cells, and its ability to influence the expression of c-MYC, a transcription factor that plays a primary oncogenic role in a majority of cancers, including BL (Ramiro et al., 2004; Takizawa et al., 2008; Greisman et al., 2012). Here, MYC is linked to Burkitt lymphoma.