Appearance of early and late components of Epstein-Barr virus-associated membrane antigen in Daudi cells superinfected with P3HR-1 virus.

This study investigated the synthesis of membrane antigen (MA) as well as virus capsid antigen (VCA) and early antigen (EA) in Daudi cells which had been superinfected with the P3HR-1 strain of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and then treated with trypsin to remove initially absorbed MA-positive material from the cell surface. Synthesis of MA, VCA and EA was completely inhibited by puromycin. A marked reduction in the frequency of MA positive cells was observed in superinfected cells cultured in the presence of either cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C) or phosphonoacetate (PA); however, a small fraction of MA synthesis occurred, suggesting an inhibitor insensitive component in MA, A differential absorption of EBV antibody-positive human serum with the Ara-C treated or untreated infected cells detected two antigenically different components in MA: early (Ara-C insensitive) and late (Ara-C sensitive) MA.