Establishment of latent Epstein-Barr virus infection and stable episomal maintenance in murine B-cell lines

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a strict human pathogen for which no small anim al models exist. Plasmids that contain the EBV plasmid origin of replicatio n, oriP, and express EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) are stably maintained ex trachromosomally in human cells, whereas these plasmids replicate poorly in rodent cells. However, the ability of oriP and EBNA1 to maintain the entir e EBV episome in proliferating rodent cells has not been determined. Expres sion of the two human B-cell receptors for EBV on the surfaces of murine B cells allows efficient viral entry that leads to the establishment of laten t EBV infection and long-term persistence of the viral genome. Latent gene expression in these cells resembles the latency II profile in that EBNA1 an d LMP1 can be detected whereas EBNA2 and the EBNA3s are not expressed.