Epstein-Barr virus-carrying B cells are large, surface IgM, IgD-bearing cells in normal individuals and acute malaria patients.

In this study the presence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) carrying B lymphocytes in different B-cell subpopulations from peripheral blood was determined by spontaneous outgrowth which gives rise to lymphoblastoid cell lines. In healthy seropositive adults, the EBV-carrying B cell was predominantly within the IgM- and IgD-positive but not the IgG-positive subpopulations. Furthermore, these B lymphocytes were in the low-density (large cell) Percoll fraction. The IgM- and IgD-positive B cell phenotype suggests the EBV-carrying B cells to be circulating virgin B cells recently released from the bone marrow. These B cells have an estimated life span of only 6-8 weeks suggesting that long-term EBV persistence in the body may be the result of infection of a more primitive B-cell type. Similar experiments were carried out in children with acute malaria from the Gambia, West Africa, where Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is endemic in order to determine whether a population of EBV-carrying B cells could be identified which had a similar phenotype to the BL cell. The EBV-carrying B cells in this patient group were also found in the IgM-positive, IgG-negative B-cell subpopulation. The majority of these cells were found in the low-density (large cell) Percoll fraction although in some patients a proportion was derived from the high-density (small cell) fraction. This cellular phenotype is not representative of a BL cell.