Epstein-Barr virus immortalization of normal cells of B cell lineage with nonproductive, rearranged immunoglobulin genes.

Most continuous cell lines derived by EBV immortalization of peripheral blood cells are composed of phenotypically mature B lymphocytes, and secrete Ig. Occasionally, EBV-immortalized cell lines have failed to secrete Ig. Expansion and characterization of one of these EBV-induced cell lines, VDS-O, showed that in addition to a lack of Ig secretion, surface and intracytoplasmic Ig were absent. Cell surface phenotyping revealed that VDS-O belongs to the B cell lineage, because it expresses the B cell restricted antigens B1 and B4, while it lacks T cell and monocyte-associated determinants. Analysis of the Ig gene organization in VDS-O revealed that the Ig genes are rearranged for both heavy (gamma) and light (kappa) chains. However, the expected gamma-heavy chain and/or kappa-light chain RNA species were not detected. These findings demonstrate the existence in normal peripheral blood of cells of B cell lineage susceptible to EBV immortalization that have Ig genes that are rearranged but are nonproductive.