Down-regulation of BLIMP1-alpha by the EBV oncogene, LMP1, disrupts the plasma cell differentiation program and prevents viral replication in B cells

In this study, we have investigated the effect of BLIMP1α on gene expression, cell differentiation and pathogenesis in normal human GC B cells using a non-viral vector based system Gene expression was compared among BLIMP1α, LMP1-transfected and control vector-transfected GC B cells from two patients. RNA from the FACS-sorted transfected GC B cells was amplified. Fragmented cRNA was hybridized to HG-U133 Plus 2.0 microarrays. Differentially expressed genes were identified using the GCOS pair-wise analysis.