Furthermore, our demonstration that knock-down of constitutive IRF6 expression inhibits TPA-induced lytic EBV infection in both an EBV + NPC cell line (NPC43) and an EBV + GC cell line (SNU719) suggests that IRF6 also plays a role regulating the latent-to-lytic EBV switch in human NPC and GC tumors. The gene discussed is IRF6; the disease is nasopharyngeal carcinoma.