Transcription of latent and replicative Epstein-Barr-virus genes in bone-marrow and peripheral-blood mononuclear cells of healthy donors
✍ Scribed by Roberta Gonnella; Antonio Angeloni; Antonella Calogero; Antonella Farina; Roberta Santarelli; Giuseppe Gentile; William Arcese; Pietro Martino; Franco Mandelli; Luigi Frati; Alberto Faggioni; Giuseppe Ragona
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- French
- Weight
- 155 KB
- Volume
- 70
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7136
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✦ Synopsis
Reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction has been used to analyze the expression of 2 latent genes (EBNA-1 and LMP-1) and one replicative gene (BZLF-1) of Epstein-Barr virus in mononuclear cells from bone marrow and peripheral blood of healthy donors. EBV-gene transcription was detected in 8 out of 15 bone-marrow samples. Among these, 5 allowed the detection of latency-associated transcripts in the absence of BZLF-1 expression. Only one sample showed positivity for expression of both latent and lytic genes. In 2 cases, BZLF-1 was the only transcript detected. In peripheral blood, 4 out of 7 samples showed evidence of EBNA-1 transcription; LMP-1 was expressed in 5 samples, and in 2 cases concomitant expression of EBNA-1 and BZLF-1 was detected. These results provide a direct demonstration by RT-PCR of EBV-gene transcription in bone-marrow-resident viral infected cells and suggest, in contrast to previous studies on peripheral blood, that LMP-1 and BZLF-1 are frequently transcribed also in absence of EBV-related disease. The heterogeneous viral gene expression found makes it difficult to define a pattern of viral latency in vivo which coincides with that described for lymphoblastoid or Burkitt's-lymphoma cell lines at different stages of differentiation.