RESEARCH ARTICLE
Epstein-Barr-Virus-Infected CD15 (Lewis X)-Positive Hodgkin-Lymphoma-Like B Cells in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Hirotake Inomata§, 1, Masami Takei*, §, 1, Hiroyuki Nakamura2, Shigeyoshi Fujiwara2, Hidetaka Shiraiwa1, Noboru Kitamura1, Shunsei Hirohata3, Hiroyuki Masuda1, 4, Jin Takeuchi1, Shigemasa Sawada*, 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 41
Last Page: 47
Publisher ID: TORJ-3-41
DOI: 10.2174/1874312900903010041
Article History:
Received Date: 27/3/2009Revision Received Date: 14/4/2009
Acceptance Date: 6/8/2009
Electronic publication date: 7/9/2009
Collection year: 2009

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), especially those who are treated with methotrexate (MTX), might have an increased risk of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), a malignancy that is associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Here we describe a monoclonal EBV-infected B-lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL) called TKS-1 that was established from cells that spontaneously converted from an MTX-treated RA patient. TKS-1 has properties similar to HL cells and it is distinctly different from control LCLs established from normal individuals. TKS-1 cells express the HL -associated surface markers CD15 and CD30 (Takei et al. 1989). Like Hodgkin Reed-Sternberg (H-RS) cells of EBV-positive HL, TKS-1 cells express EBNA1 mRNA transcribed from the Qp promoter of the virus, whereas control LCLs use the Cp or Wp promoter to transcribe mRNA. TKS-1 cells can proliferate in an anchorage-independent manner and possess a cloning efficiency comparable to that of the Burkitt lymphoma (BL) line Raji. In addition, two EBV-positive LCLs established by cocultivated CD34+ cells isolated from the bone marrow of patients with RA and peripheral blood B lymphocytes from a healthy EBV-seronegative individual also expressed CD15. These results indicate that EBV-infected B-lymphoblastoid cells from patients with RA tend to acquire properties similar to HL cells.