The present study was pushed to examine whether there are differences in the ability of lytic biological variants of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and if there are differences in the polypeptides of EBV particles from three different cell lines (NPC-KT, A2L/AH, and B95-8). Early antigen (EA) synthesis was confirmed by immunoprecipitation which showed that polypeptides synthesized in Raji cells superinfected with P3HR-1 and NPC-KT EBVs were indistinguishable by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis. On the other hand, one of the most abundant polypeptides, 58 kilodalton polypeptide, of virus particles from epithelial cells (NPC-KT and A2L/AH) was not observed with virus from lymphoblastoid cells (B95-8). The data suggests that 58-kilodalton polypeptide in characteristic protein of EBV from epithelial cells.
