A selectable marker allows investigation of a nontransforming Epstein-Barr virus mutant.

The derivation of specifically mutated Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) recombinants is dependent on strategies to identify, enumerate, and clone infected B lymphocytes. In recent experiments, EBV recombinants containing a positive selection marker were identified and cloned in B-lymphoma (BL) cells infected and then plated under selective conditions (F. Wang, A. Marchini, and E. Kieff, J. Virol. 65:1701-1709, 1991). We now use BL cells, for the first time, as hosts for assaying and cloning otherwise isogenic EBV recombinants carrying a hygromycin phosphotransferase (HYG) gene linked to either a nontransforming deletion mutant or a transforming wild-type EBV nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA-2) gene. Both types of recombinants converted BL cells to hygromycin resistance with similar efficiency, formed episomes, and usually expressed only EBNA-1. Only the wild-type EBNA-2 HYG gene EBV recombinant transformed primary B lymphocytes. This strategy of assaying virus on BL and primary B lymphocytes makes possible the direct assessment of the transforming efficiency of an EBV recombinant. The resultant infected BL cells are also useful for the characterization of the nontransforming recombinant EBV genomes. The HYG gene insertion in the BHLF1 open reading frame eliminated BHLF1 protein expression. The insertion and resulting BHLF1 mutation did not interfere with primary B-lymphocyte infection, growth transformation, induction of lytic infection, or virus production. Thus, these experiments also indicate that neither the BHLF1 open reading frame nor the HYG gene insertion critically affects B-lymphocyte infection in vitro.