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Cellular Immunity in Chronic Theiler's Virus Central Nervous System Infection¹

Section of Infectious Diseases-Hypersensitivity, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, VA Lakeside Hospital and Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois 60611

Abstract

After (IC) inoculation of the DA strain of TMEV, SJL/J mice develop chronic CNS infection with marked mononuclear cell infiltration of spinal cord leptomeninges and white matter and concomitant demyelination. In the present study the temporal course of cell-mediated and humoral immune responses to virus were measured in this infection. It was shown that chronic TMEV infection is associated with the development of immunologically specific spleen cell reactivity as judged by in vitro incorporation of ³H-TdR into DNA in response to inactivated TMEV antigen. Spleen cell reactivity is first detectable about 2 months after infection, persists for at least 1 year, and correlates with the temporal development of serum-neutralizing antibody. The late development of sensitized spleen cells is not the result of an immunosuppressive effect of this virus infection since infected mice exhibit normal spleen cell proliferative responses to T cell mitogens and produce normal antibody responses to a heterologous protein antigen, sheep red blood cells. In addition, anti-viral antibody inhibits virusinduced spleen cell reactivity. Finally, the antigen-reactive lymphocyte subpopulation within the spleen responsible for proliferation to TMEV antigen are T cells and not B cells.

Footnotes

¹ This study was supported by United States Public Health Service Grant RR-05370, National Multiple Sclerosis Grant 891-B-1, and in part by the Veterans Administration Research Service Grant MRS 7319.

² Address reprint requests: Dr. Stanley G. Rabinowitz, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611.