Johannessen I, Haque T, N'Jie-Jobe J, Crawford D H
Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
J Gen Virol. 1998 Jul;79 ( Pt 7):1631-6. doi: 10.1099/0022-1317-79-7-1631.
Following primary infection Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) establishes a persistent infection which is maintained for the life-time of the host. EBV can be found in a small number of circulating B cells, but the nature of the virus-cell interaction has not been fully established. Several assay systems are used to quantify persistent EBV infection, including PCR amplification of EBV DNA and spontaneous outgrowth of lymphoblastoid cell lines in culture. More recently, outgrowth of EBV-positive B cell tumours in severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice inoculated with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from normal EBV-seropositive donors has also been used to study B cell infection in vivo. In the present study we have compared the results of these two biological assay systems with PCR detection of EBV DNA and a regression assay as a measure of host T cell immunity to EBV. PBMC from ten normal EBV-seropositive donors were studied and although each test gave consistent results on repeat assays, no correlation was found between any of the assays tested. This result suggests that each assay measures a separate aspect of EBV persistence in B cells, and indicates a previously unrecognized degree of heterogeneity in the B cell population in which EBV resides.
初次感染后，爱泼斯坦-巴尔病毒（EBV）会建立一种持续感染状态，并在宿主的一生中持续存在。EBV可在少数循环B细胞中被发现，但病毒与细胞相互作用的本质尚未完全明确。有几种检测系统用于量化EBV的持续感染，包括EBV DNA的PCR扩增以及培养中淋巴母细胞系的自发生长。最近，将来自正常EBV血清阳性供体的外周血单核细胞（PBMC）接种到严重联合免疫缺陷（SCID）小鼠体内，EBV阳性B细胞肿瘤的生长也被用于研究体内B细胞感染。在本研究中，我们将这两种生物学检测系统的结果与EBV DNA的PCR检测以及作为宿主对EBV T细胞免疫指标的回归分析进行了比较。对来自10名正常EBV血清阳性供体的PBMC进行了研究，尽管每项检测在重复检测时都给出了一致的结果，但在所检测的任何一项检测之间均未发现相关性。这一结果表明，每项检测所测量的是EBV在B细胞中持续存在的一个独立方面，并表明EBV所驻留的B细胞群体中存在一种此前未被认识到的异质性程度。
