A tonsil organoid model reveals Epstein-Barr virus-infected germinal center B cell states during primary infection.

Abstract

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) colonizes secondary lymphoid tissues to establish persistent infection and is strongly associated with malignancy and autoimmunity. Our understanding of EBV infection biology is hindered by a lack of models that capture infected B cell activity in the lymphoid tissue microenvironment. We therefore developed an EBV human tonsil organoid model to evaluate key B cell states and antiviral responses, including after primary infection. EBV promoted B cell differentiation into germinal center-like phenotypes and transcriptomic analyses highlighted numerous B cell transcriptional programs unique to EBV-infected cells. B cell receptor repertoire analysis revealed that most EBV⁺ B cells underwent class switching but only rarely participated in somatic hypermutation. CD4 T cells, highly activated by organoid infection, limited EBV⁺ B cell outgrowth in both primary and secondary EBV infection. Our findings demonstrate human tonsil organoids as a physiologically relevant model to investigate key aspects of EBV immunity and pathogenesis.