Appearance of Epstein-Barr virus-associated antigens in infected Raji cells

Lajos Gergely, George Klein, Ingemar Ernberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

89 Scopus citations

Abstract

The appearance of EBV-associated early and membrane antigens (EA and MA) was studied in EBV-infected Raji cells. Newly synthetized MA appeared on approximately 50% of the cells 20-24 hours after infection. Around the same time intranuclear EA appeared in 2-5% of the cells, spreading later into the cytoplasm. The appearance of MA and EA was not inhibited by Ara C and iododeoxyuridine, but was completely prevented by puromycin. Viral capsid antigen (VCA) synthesis was not observed during an observation period of 4 days. Unless DNA synthesis was inhibited, the frequency of MA- and EA-positive cells decreased continuously after 1 or 2 days; the infectious cycle was thus abortive. Exposure of EBV to sera with high anti-MA titers neutralized the virus, as judged by its inability to induce EA. The virusneutralizing titers could be reduced by absorbing the sera with an EBV carrying cell line containing a high frequency of MA-positive cells, but not with a line with few MA-positives. The frequency of VCA + EA + cells was approximately equal in both lines. This supports the hypothesis that MA may represent viral envelope components inserted into the cell membrane, in analogy with the HSV system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10-21
Number of pages12
JournalVirology
Volume45
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1971
Externally publishedYes

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