Geist L J, Hinde S L
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City 52242, USA.
J Investig Med. 2001 Sep;49(5):434-41. doi: 10.2310/6650.2001.33788.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in an immunocompromised host. Pulmonary infection with CMV results in an inflammatory response, which includes the local production of cytokines. Cytokine production stimulated by CMV infection serves to activate a series of immunologic responses involved in viral clearance. Previous work has demonstrated that different mouse strains express variable sensitivity to CMV infection.
Using mouse strains that express sensitive (BALB/cj) and resistant (C57BL/6) CMV phenotypes, we asked whether the differences in susceptibility to infection were caused by differences in pulmonary cytokine production after intraperitoneal infection with CMV.
C57 mice demonstrated a higher total bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and BAL lymphocyte count at 3 and 7 days after intraperitoneal infection compared with BALB mice. There were no differences in BAL cytokine production; however, we were able to demonstrate differences in CMV DNA load in the lungs of BALB mice compared with that of C57 mice. In addition, there appeared to be increased whole-lung production of the TH2 cytokine IL-10 in the BALB mice versus the C57 mice.
This observation suggests that the genetic susceptibility to CMV infection may, in part, be regulated by differences in cytokines production within the local environment.
巨细胞病毒（CMV）感染是免疫功能低下宿主发病和死亡的重要原因。CMV肺部感染会引发炎症反应，其中包括细胞因子的局部产生。CMV感染刺激的细胞因子产生有助于激活一系列参与病毒清除的免疫反应。先前的研究表明，不同的小鼠品系对CMV感染表现出不同的敏感性。
我们使用表现出敏感（BALB/cj）和抗性（C57BL/6）CMV表型的小鼠品系，探究腹腔内感染CMV后，感染易感性的差异是否由肺部细胞因子产生的差异所致。
与BALB小鼠相比，C57小鼠在腹腔感染后第3天和第7天的总支气管肺泡灌洗（BAL）量和BAL淋巴细胞计数更高。BAL细胞因子产生没有差异；然而，我们能够证明BALB小鼠肺部的CMV DNA载量与C57小鼠存在差异。此外，与C57小鼠相比，BALB小鼠全肺中TH2细胞因子白细胞介素-10的产生似乎有所增加。
这一观察结果表明，对CMV感染的遗传易感性可能部分受局部环境中细胞因子产生差异的调节。
