The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) immediate-early transactivator BZLF1 plays a key role in switching EBV infection from the latent to the lytic form by stimulating the expression cascade of lytic genes; it also regulates the expression of several cellular genes. Recently, we reported that BZLF1 is expressed in primary human B cells early after EBV infection. To investigate whether this BZLF1 expression early after infection plays a role in the EBV-induced growth transformation of primary B cells, we generated BZLF1-knockout EBV and quantitatively evaluated its transforming ability compared with that of wild-type EBV. We found that the 50 % transforming dose of BZLF1-knockout EBV was quite similar to that of wild-type EBV. Established lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) harbouring BZLF1-knockout EBV were indistinguishable from LCLs harbouring wild-type EBV in their pattern of latent gene expression and in their growth in vitro. Furthermore, the copy numbers of EBV episomes were very similar in the LCLs harbouring BZLF1-knockout EBV and in those harbouring wild-type EBV. These data indicate that disrupting BZLF1 expression in the context of the EBV genome, and the resultant inability to enter lytic replication, have little impact on the growth of LCLs and the steady-state copy number of EBV episomes in established LCLs.
INTRODUCTIONEpstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a ubiquitous human gammaherpesvirus that is associated with various malignancies, including Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and gastric carcinoma . EBV efficiently infects primary B lymphocytes, transforming them into indefinitely proliferating lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) in vitro and causing lymphoproliferative diseases in immune-deficient individuals in vivo .LCLs harbour multiple copies of the EBV episome, from which EBV expresses latent gene products, including six nuclear proteins (EBNA1, -2, -3A, -3B, -3C and -LP), three integral membrane proteins (LMP1, -2A and -2B), two small non-polyadenylated RNAs (EBER1 and EBER2), BamHI-A rightward transcripts and microRNAs. Of these, EBNA1, -2, -3A, -3C and -LP, LMP1 and EBER2 are necessary for efficient growth transformation (Cohen et al., 1989;Hammerschmidt & Sugden, 1989;Humme et al., 2003;Kaye et al., 1993;Mannick et al., 1991;Maruo et al., 2003Maruo et al., , 2006Tomkinson et al., 1993;Wu et al., 2007;Yajima et al., 2005).The viral gene BZLF1 encodes a key protein that switches EBV infection from the latent to the lytic form (Countryman & Miller, 1985;Takada et al., 1986). The BZLF1 protein is a member of the basic leucine zipper (bZIP) family of transcription factors and functions as a transactivator by binding to the BZLF1-responsive element (ZRE) in its target promoters (Chang et al., 1990;Farrell et al., 1989;Feederle et al., 2000;Flemington et al., 1992;Sinclair, 2003). BZLF1 plays critical roles in the replication of the EBV genome by binding to the origin of lytic replication, as well as by inducing viral genes that function as the viral replication machinery, such as BALF5...