In the beginning: a viral origin exploits the cell.

The origin of replication of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) has been shown to associate with cellular proteins that regulate the initiation of DNA synthesis in human cells. These cellular proteins are subunits of both the origin recognition complex and what might be the replicative helicase. Such associations identify the EBV origin of replication as being an experimentally tractable paradigm for mammalian replicons.