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Blood, 15 December 2004, Vol. 104, No. 13, pp. 4252-4259. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on August 26, 2004; DOI 10.1182/blood-2004-04-1245. This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 2004-04-1245v1 104/13/4252    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Rights and Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zhang, S. Articles by Lo, S.-C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zhang, S. Articles by Lo, S.-C. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?  Previous Article  |  Next Article  Submitted April 5, 2004 Accepted August 7, 2004 Mycoplasma fermentans Infection Promotes Immortalization of Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells in Culture Shimin Zhang, Shien Tsai, Timothy T Wu, Bingjie Li, James W Shih, and Shyh-Ching Lo* Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Pathology, American Registry of Pathology, Washington, DC, USA Department of Transfusion Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Pathology, American Registry of Pathology, Washington, DC, USA; Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC, USA * Corresponding author; email: los{at}afip.osd.mil. Chronic infection or colonization by mycoplasma(s) could gradually and significantly alter many biological properties of mammalian host cells in culture, including induction of malignant transformation. We examined effects of M. fermentans infection on the continuing survival and immortality of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy blood donors. Without specific supplemental growth factors, human PBMCs normally die rapidly, with few cells other than macrophages/monocytes surviving after 2 weeks in cultures. Only occasional Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive B-lymphocytes would continue to proliferate and undergo spontaneous immortalization. Our present study revealed that infection of human PBMCs in culture with the incognitus and PG18 strains of M. fermentans, but surprisingly not with some other strains tested in parallel, markedly enhanced the rate of EBV-positive B-lymphocytes to undergo immortalization (74% vs. 17%). Compared with spontaneously immortalized PBMCs, the PBMCs immortalized in cultures infected with the mycoplasmas often had prominent karyotype changes with chromosomal loss, gain or translocations. Furthermore, many of these immortalized B-lymphocytes were found to be monoclonal in nature. The in vitro findings would be of relevance to lymphoproliferative disorders occurred in patients with immune suppression. The mycoplasma-mediated promotional effect in cell immortalization and its potential clinical implications warrant further study. CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

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