BRCA1 and breast cancer: The reported methylation frequencies of the genes were: 84% of BRCA1, 84% of BRCA2, 15% of p16, 81% of p14, 12% of MGM2, and 18% of hMLH. A potent effect of the EBV virus on the methylation machinery is suggested by the high frequency of epigenetic silencing in BRCA1, BRCA2, and p14; this is an oncogenic mechanism delineated in other cancers except in breast cancer (Ryan et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2012).