Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the most common cause of
infectious mononucleosis and is associated with the development of several human
malignancies. A closely related herpesvirus in the same lymphocryptovirus (LCV) genera as EBV naturally infects rhesus monkeys and provides an important animal model for studying EBV pathogenesis. We cloned the small viral capsid
antigen (sVCA) homologue from the rhesus LCV and developed a
peptide enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to determine whether
epitopes in the rhesus LCV sVCA are a reliable
indicator of rhesus LCV
infection. In order to define a "gold standard" for rhesus LCV
infection, we also cloned the EBV-encoded small
RNA 1 (
EBER1) and
EBER2 homologues from rhesus LCV and developed a reverse transcription (RT)-PCR assay to detect persistent LCV
infection in rhesus monkey peripheral blood lymphocytes. Animals from a conventional and a hand-reared colony were studied to compare the prevalence of rhesus LCV
infection in the two groups. There was a 100% correlation between the
peptide ELISA and EBER RT-PCR results for rhesus LCV
infection. In addition, specificity for LCV
infection and exclusion of potential cross-reactivity to the rhesus rhadinovirus sVCA homologue could be demonstrated using sera from experimentally infected animals. These studies establish two novel assays for reliable diagnosis of acute and persistent rhesus LCV
infections. The rhesus LCV sVCA
peptide ELISA provides a sensitive and reliable assay for routine screening, and these studies of the hand-reared colony confirm the feasibility of raising rhesus LCV-naive animals.