Epstein-Barr virus genomes are found predominantly in IgA-positive B cells in the blood of healthy carriers

Abstract

B lymphocytes have been identified as the main reservoir of latent Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV) in healthy virus carriers. We have established a semi‐quantitative PCR method to estimate the EBV genome load in the blood B‐cell subpopulation in healthy individuals. EBV DNA was detected in subfractionated IgM‐, IgG‐ and IgA‐positive B cells. Between 80% and 90% of the viral DNA was found in the IgA‐positive compared with the IgA‐negative fraction. Int. J. Cancer 83:50–54, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Distinct Ex Vivo Susceptibility of B-Cell Subsets to Epstein-Barr Virus Infection According to Differentiation Status and Tissue Origin

“…This fact suggests that if EBV uses tonsillar memory B cells as a direct target, the virus preferentially accesses isotype-switched cells. In agreement with our observations, the vast majority of EBV DNA in peripheral blood cells from EBV carriers has been detected in surface-IgA-positive B cells (12). Moreover, recent work on peripheral blood B cells isolated from patients with infectious mononucleosis found that EBV-infected cells were preferentially excluded from the IgM isotype in the CD27 ϩ memory B-cell pool (36).…”

EBV Persistence Involves Strict Selection of Latently Infected B Cells

“…Careful quantitation of the total number of genomes before and after fractionation would reveal whether a true enrichment in IgA ϩ cell was occurring. Such an enrichment was not seen in either our or the previously published studies (35).…”

“…A recent report claimed that EBV in the peripheral blood was restricted to IgA-positive cells (35). However, in several studies, we have failed to repeat these observations.…”

“…Recently, evidence has been presented that it is even more narrowly restricted, being limited to memory cells expressing the IgA isotype (35). To test this claim, we have compared the frequency of virus-infected B cells in total IgD, CD27…”

“…The reason for the discrepancy in the results is technical. In the paper of Ehlin-Henrikson et al (35), the total IgM-bearing population of B cells was compared with the IgGand IgA-bearing subsets. Because naive B cells are also IgM positive and constitute the bulk of peripheral B cells, the IgM ϩ fraction will be highly diluted by naive B cells that we have shown to be EBV negative.…”