Detection of Epstein-Barr virus by in situ hybridization. Progress toward development of a nonisotopic diagnostic test.

This work presents some initial quantitation of an in situ hybridization method for detection of Epstein-Barr (EB) virus nucleic acids. The purpose is to develop evaluative criteria for diagnosis of viral presence in clinical tissue specimens. In this work simultaneous denaturation of probe and target DNA and an alkaline phosphatase conjugate to detect biotinated probe were used as described by Unger et al. For evaluation of the hybridization, a variety of cell lines, both productively and latently infected, that were hybridized in situ using nick translated 32P-labeled viral probe sequences and counted by scintillation after the method of Lawrence and Singer were used. Producer cells (B95-8) showed intense foci of staining in approximately 5% of cells, with most of the other cells showing varying staining intensity. Raji cells showed varying amounts of signal from cell to cell. Namalwa cells exhibited one spot in most cells that was decreased after cells were treated with Actinomycin D (dactinomycin, Merck Sharp & Dohme, West Point, PA). Signal was identified in only a third of these same cells after sectioning. EB virus-negative Ramos cells showed no signal. The nuclear punctate nature of the signal generated is diagnostic of infected cells, and may be a useful test for cultured cells or pathologic specimens.