Molecular cloning of membrane cofactor protein (MCP; CD46) on B95a cell, an Epstein-Barr virus-transformed marmoset B cell line: B95a-MCP is susceptible to infection by the CAM, but not the Nagahata strain of the measles virus.

Measles virus (MV) infects not only human beings but also some simian species. The MV receptor on Vero cells (a cell line established from African Green monkey kidney cells) and human cells has been shown to be the membrane cofactor protein MCP/CD46, which is an inhibitor of autologous complement (C) activation. B95a, an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-transformed marmoset B cell line, is a simian cell line used for MV selection and is much more susceptible to MV than Vero cells. In the present study, we isolated cDNAs encoding MCP homologues from B95a cDNA library and assessed whether B95a-MCP is responsible for the high susceptibility of B95a to MV. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cDNA of B95a-MCP was 76% identical to that of human-MCP, and the recombinant B95a-MCP exerts C inhibitor activity. Although CAM, a vaccine strain of MV, infected Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing B95a-MCP, Nagahata strain, a wild type of MV, failed to infect the CHO transfectants, suggesting that additional membrane molecules of B95a are responsible for the high susceptibility of B95a to the Nagahata strain.