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Updated: Jul 28, 2026
Establishment of Epstein-Barr Virus Growth-transformed Lymphoblastoid Cell Lines
Published on: November 8, 2011
Epstein-Barr virus with the latent infection nuclear antigen 3B completely deleted is still competent for B-cell
Adrienne Chen1, Matthew Divisconte, Xiaoqun Jiang
1Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 3B (EBNA-3B) is considered nonessential for EBV-mediated B-cell growth transformation in vitro based on three virus isolates with EBNA-3B mutations. Two of these isolates could potentially express truncated EBNA-3B products, and, similarly, we now show that the third isolate, IB4, has a point mutation and in-frame deletion of 263 amino acids. In order to test whether a virus with EBNA-3B completely deleted can immortalize B-cell growth, we first cloned the EBV genome as a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) and showed that the BAC-derived virus was B-cell immortalization competent. Deletion of the entire EBNA-3B open reading frame from the EBV BAC had no adverse impact on growth of EBV-immortalized B cells, providing formal proof that EBNA-3B is not essential for EBV-mediated B-cell growth transformation in vitro.
