Epstein-Barr virus transforms precursor B cells even before immunoglobulin gene rearrangements - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 1984 May;309(5966):369-72.

doi: 10.1038/309369a0.

Epstein-Barr virus transforms precursor B cells even before immunoglobulin gene rearrangements

S Katamine et al. Nature. 1984 May.

Abstract

The very early stages of the human B-cell differentiation pathway are poorly understood, primarily because of the lack of appropriate permanent cell lines. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a putative human oncogenic virus which transforms human B cells in vitro into continuously proliferating cells. It has been believed that EBV transforms mature B cells, but recently, transformation of immature pre-B-cell lines has been reported, suggesting that EBV might also transform cells much earlier in the B-cell lineage. We report here the establishment of cell lines transformed by EBV at various stages of the B-cell differentiation pathway. Interestingly, two lines showed the complete absence of immunoglobulin synthesis and the lack of immunoglobulin gene rearrangement despite containing EBV genome and surface markers of B cells. Our results indicate that EBV can infect and transform cells of the B lymphocyte lineage even before immunoglobulin gene rearrangement.

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