Cyclosporine Promotes Epstein-Barr Virus-Infected Human B-Cell Transformation Assayed by Three Correlated Assay Methods

Abstract

We have reported that cyclosporine (CsA) has direct effect to promote Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) transformation of human peripheral blood B lymphocytes. In this article, we have reported that CsA promoted EBV-infected, human B-cell transformation as assayed by three methods of colony number counting, cell number counting, and 3H-thymidine incorporation. At first, we sought to correlate the three methods in EBV-infected human B-cell transformation, observing that they are convenient correlate with each other, and only vary in the degree when transformed cells are compared to the controls. Based on these pilot experiments, the three assay methods were then applied to CsA-treated and nontreated, EBV-infected human B cells to investigate whether CsA treatment promoted EBV-infected human B-cell transformation. We observed that CsA treatment increased colony formation above the control value of 28 ± 4.5/well to 49 ± 4.3 (colonies/well; n = 5; P < .05). CsA treatment increased the cell number from the control of 33,025 ± 1900 to 50,925 ± 4194 (cells/well; n = 5; P < .05). CsA treatment increased 3H-thymidine incorporation from the control result of 12,481 ± 1341 to 26,514 ± 5464 (CPM/well; n = 5; P < .05). In conclusion, CsA promoted EBV-B-cell transformation in three correlated assay methods in vitro using a model of posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder.