Comparison of Epstein-Barr viral DNAs in Burkitt lymphoma biopsy cells and in cells clonally transformed in vitro.

The nucleotide sequences of intracellular Epstein-Barr viral DNAs in tumor biopsy cells of clones independently transformed in vitro were generally compared by determing the electrophoretic mobilities of restriction endonuclease cleavage fragments of the viral DNA. To carry out this comparison, cleaved cell DNAs were electrophoresed in agarose gels and transferred to nitrocellulose paper, and the immobilized viral species were identified by hybridization with purified, viral DNA labeled in vitro. These studies lead to three findings: (i) The complexities of all of the intracellular viral DNAs are similar to one another and to that of purified virion DNA. (II) There are small differences in the cleavage patterns of some viral DNAs, but the differences of the cleavage patterns of the viral DNA resident in the tumor cells and in the cells transformed in vitro are not more pronounced than those found between the different clones of the cells transformed in vitro. (iii) All of the viral DNA species contain a repeated sequence. The first two conclusions indicate that the Epstein-Barr virus strain studied in the laboratory appears indistinguishable from that associated with Burkitt lymphoma.