Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) naturally infects only humans, creating a major barrier to evaluating the efficiency of vaccines and therapies in vivo. As an EBV ortholog, rhesus lymphocryptovirus (rhLCV) offers a biologically relevant surrogate system. However, its application has been primarily limited to rhesus macaques. Here, we demonstrate that cynomolgus macaque lymphocytes are also susceptible to rhLCV in vitro, and the newly transformed cy-LCL111 shows superior and sustained rhLCV production ability. rhLCV infection of cynomolgus macaque lymphocytes can be efficiently neutralized by anti-EBV gH/gL nAbs AMMO1 and anti-EBV gB mAbs 3A5, highlighting the potential of cynomolgus macaques as an in vivo model to assess anti-EBV mAb and vaccine efficacy. Our findings support the use of cynomolgus macaques as an additional model for EBV research and offer a useful platform for evaluating EBV-specific prophylactic or therapeutic strategies.
Zhong et al. (Tue,) studied this question.