Maintenance of KSHV-infected Cell Lines

All cell lines were grown in minimal essential medium (alpha medium– Gibco Invitrogen) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS– Gibco Invitrogen) and passaged as described previously [27 (link)]. The Vero cell line carrying the recombinant rKSHV.219 virus and the recombinant baculovirus BacK50 were obtained from Jeffery Vieira [26 (link)]. These cells were used to sub-clone a Vero line that displayed almost 100% GFP positivity in the presence of puromycin (5 µg/ml). The cell line iSLK developed by the Ganem Lab [28 (link)] was obtained from Jae Jung. 5r219 cells were maintained in 10 µg/ml puromycin continuously.