Expression profiling of host genes modulated by Epstein-Barr virus Rta in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

EBV Rta is a transcriptional activator that functions to disrupt EBV latency in cells of epithelial origin. This series of experiment is to identify host genes that are moduated by the expression of doxycycline-inducible EBV Rta in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells. Designations for the two EBV Rta inducible cell lines are TW01TetER_cl7 (lower expression level) and TW01TetER_cl19 (higher expression level); for the control line is TW01Tet. All the three inducible cell lines were grown to log-phase before doxycycline induction. Same number of cells from the three cell lines were treated with doxycycline for 24 h. Total RNAs from the three samples were extracted and subjected to microarray analysis (Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0 ST Array , n=33,297). We sought to identify genes up- or down-regulated in the two doxycycline-treated EBV Rta cells, but not in the treated control cells.