We investigated the influence of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) replication cycle on natural killing (NK) activity and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) against EBV-infected cells. Peripheral blood lymphocytes from healthy EBV-seropositive and -seronegative donors were separated on Ficoll-Hypaque gradients and used as effector cells in the standard 51Cr release assay to measure NK and ADCC. EBV-genome positive RAJI and DAUDI cells superinfected with either the non-transforming P3HR-1 EBV or the transforming B95-8 EBV were used as targets. The results obtained show that most normal individuals have ADCC and NK activity against P3HR-1 EBV-infected RAJI cells. Both the cytotoxic activities increased with the proportional increase in effector/target (E/T) ratios, assay incubation time, dose of the infecting virus and the time of pre-infection with EBV. Moreover, the data obtained indicate that different immune mechanisms are effective at different stages of the virus replication cycle. During the early stages of virus replication, EBV-superinfected cells are more susceptible to ADCC than to NK, whereas in later stages the susceptibility to NK is increased significantly and appears to play a more dominant role. The nature of the target cells or the strain of EBV used to superinfect these targets did not influence their susceptibility to ADCC and NK activity; however some quantitative differences were found. Using metabolic inhibitors such as cytosine arabinoside, phosphonoacetic acid, actinomycin D, cycloheximide and puromycin, it was found that new DNA synthesis is not essential but some RNA and protein synthesis is necessary, late in the viral cycle, for the superinfected cells to become susceptible to NK and ADCC.