Molecular analysis of Human Herpes Virus 8 and associated lesions

Abstract

This thesis looks at the bio-pathways of HHV8 through the transformation of endothelial cell lines. This was performed in two separate but mutually contributing experiments. First, endothelial cell lines were infected using purified HHV8 virus, which was obtained from cultured BC-3 cell lines, derived from an effusion lymphoma. As a follow up, HUVEC and BC-3 cell lines were placed in the same flask to see if there was transmission of the virus from intact BC-3 cells to HUVECS. RNA was extracted from infected HU VECs and transcription of v-cyclin was quantified by TaqM an PCR. The HHV8 infected endothelial cells were found to contain 50-100 copies per 100 ng of template in both uninduced and induced cells. Three genes: vIL-6, LANA and GPCR could be amplified from cDNAs of infected HUVECs. Viral IL-6 transcription was positive only in the TPA treated cells. Orf-73 (LANA) and O rf-74 (GPCR) transcripts were detected with and without TPA inductions.