Analysis of restriction endonuclease fragments of intracellular epstein-barr virus DNA and isoenzymes indicate a common origin of the Raji, NC-37, and F-265 human lymphoid cell lines

Abstract

Circular Epstein-Barr virus DNA molecules isolated from different virus-transformed cell lines usually show similar but distinct restriction enzyme cleavage patterns. It is shown here that EBV DNA from the cell line Raji, which is of African Burkitt lymphoma origin, has the same cleavage pattern on digestion with either EcoRI, HindIII, or BamHI as EBV DNA from two more recently established human lymphoid cell lines, NC-37 and F-265, which are presumed to be of nontumor origin. On the other hand, these three EBV DNA isolates are clearly different from DNA of the standard B95-8 strain of the virus as judged by the same criteria. A restriction enzyme cleavage map of the circular EBV DNA from Raji cells has been made to provide a basis for the comparison. The isoenzyme patterns of 14 different marker enzymes were also investigated for the Raji, NC-37, and F-265 lines and found to be closely similar. These data indicate that the NC-37 and F-265 lines are not independent isolates of human lymphoid cell lines.