The Journal of Immunology, Vol 150, Issue 1 185-189, Copyright © 1993 by American Association of Immunologists

ARTICLES

LP-BM5 murine retrovirus-induced immunodeficiency disease in allogeneic SCID chimeric mice. Inability to recognize a putative viral superantigen does not prevent induction of disease

GL Gilmore, C Cowing and DE Mosier
Division of Immunology, Medical Biology Institute, La Jolla, California 92037.

T cell recognition of viral superantigens has been postulated to contribute to the pathogenesis of the immunodeficiency disease induced in mice by infection with the LP-BM5 murine leukemia virus complex. A candidate superantigen has been identified in the B cell lymphoma line B6-1710 derived from an LP-BM5-infected C57BL/6 (H-2b) mouse. We have asked whether the stimulatory activity expressed by B6-1710 behaves as a superantigen by assessing the ability of T cells from fully allogeneic H-2b-->H-2d SCID chimeric mice to respond to the line. T cells from allochimeric mice failed to respond to B6-1710, whereas they responded normally to Staphylococcus enterotoxin B, a well characterized superantigen. Despite this finding, allochimeric mice were fully susceptible to the immune deficiency disease induced by LP- BM5 virus infection. These findings show that the role of superantigen expression in retrovirus-induced immune deficiency disease remains to be defined.

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