Abstract
B lymphoblastoid cell lines (B-LCLs) are generally established from B lymphocytes by infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). As their genomic structure is stable in culture, B-LCLs are a valuable resource for many types of analysis. The efficiency of establishing B-LCLs from freshly obtained blood samples from healthy individuals is almost 100 %; however, for blood samples stored inappropriately after collection or held in long-term storage as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in liquid nitrogen, the efficiency of B-LCL establishment can be considerably lower. To date, we have established more than 550 B-LCLs from 685 PBMC samples that have been stored in liquid nitrogen for over 20 yr. The PBMCs were prepared from blood samples donated by individuals belonging to native minority ethnic groups in outlying regions of South America and elsewhere. The establishment of B-LCLs from this material is difficult, and failure results in the waste of valuable and rare samples. We sought to improve our success rate for establishing B-LCLs from these difficult and irreplaceable samples by a detailed examination of each step of the process. The analysis showed that two parameters were particularly critical to the success rate: the density of the PBMCs plated after EBV infection and the EBV titer. These observations shed light on cases where establishment of B-LCLs was hard due to the small number of PBMCs or damage to the cells.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. K. Moriwaki at RIKEN BioResource Center for general discussion and encouragement, and other members of the Cell Engineering Division of RIKEN BioResource Center for secretarial and technical assistance. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in Japan and was also supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) No. 22570231.
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Editor: T. Okamoto
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Danjoh, I., Sone, H., Shirota, R. et al. Development of a robust method for establishing B cell lines using Epstein-Barr Virus. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 48, 393–402 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-012-9523-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-012-9523-y