Biomolecular analysis of a defective nontransforming Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) from a patient with chronic active EBV infection.

A virus recovered from the saliva of a child with chronic active Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection for 8 years was shown to induce EBV early antigen (EBV-EA) in Raji cells and to be expressed into EBV-EA in fresh EBV-negative peripheral blood leukocytes. However, it did not replicate its DNA. Oropharyngeal epithelial cells scraped from recurrent mouth lesions were similarly positive for EBV-EA. DNA extracted from these cells and digested with BamHI contained a 6-kilobase-pair fragment homologous to BamHI fragment V and B1 EBV DNA probes. Furthermore, Southern blots of the BamHI and EcoRI digests of the DNA extracted from the cell lines of the patient (transformed with EBV strain B95-8) and of her mother (spontaneous) revealed, in addition to the expected BamHI G, H, H2, and B1 fragments used as probes, additional shorter ones of a presumably endogenous defective virus.