The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the first human tumor virus to have been isolated1. EBV, formally referred to as Human herpesvirus 4 (HHV-4)2, is part of the gamma herpes virus subfamily of the herpes virus family and is the prototype of the Lymphocryptovirus genus. Nearly 90-95% of the world's adult population is infected by the virus3. In most cases, initial infection occurs within the first 3 years of life and is asymptomatic, however, if infection occurs later during adolescence, it may give rise to an illness referred to as infectious mononucleosis4. EBV is able to infect resting B cells inducing them to become proliferative B lymphoblasts in which the virus establishes and maintains a latently infected state5. EBV can reactivate at any time and thus lead to recurrent infections6.
Over the past 50 years, the association between some viruses and the development of human malignancies has become increasingly apparent, and today it is estimated that 15% to 20% of all human cancers are related to viral infections7. The herpes viruses, including EBV, are some of the best studied examples of these types of tumor viruses8. In fact, EBV can cause many types of human malignancies, such as Burkitt lymphoma (BL), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), diffuse large B cell lymphoma, and lymphoproliferative diseases in immunocompromised hosts9,10. EBV has also been shown to be associated with the development of systemic autoimmune diseases. Some examples of these autoimmune disorders are rheumatoid arthritis (RA), polymyositis-dermatomyositis (PM-DM), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), and Sjögren's syndrome (SS)11. EBV is also associated with the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)12.
Many of these diseases can be studied or modeled using cell culture, mice, or other organisms that are infected with EBV. That is why EBV particles are needed to infect cells or organisms, whether in in vitro or in vivo models13,14,15,16, hence the need to develop a technique that allows isolation of viral particles at a low cost. The protocol described here provides guidelines for an easy way to reliably isolate EBV particles from a relatively accessible cell line and to quantitate the particles using real-time PCR, which is cost-effective and readily available to most laboratories. This is in comparison to several other methods that have been described to isolate EBV from different cell lines17,18,19,20.
P3HR-1 is a BL cell line that grows in suspension and is latently infected with an EBV type 2 strain. This cell line is an EBV producer and can be induced to produce viral particles. The goal of this manuscript is to showcase a method that permits the isolation of EBV particles from the P3HR-1 cell line, followed by quantification of the viral stock that could later be used for both in vitro and in vivo EBV experimental models.