Moskophidis D, Lechner F, Pircher H, Zinkernagel R M
Department of Pathology, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Nature. 1993 Apr 22;362(6422):758-61. doi: 10.1038/362758a0.
Viruses that are non- or poorly cytopathic have developed various strategies to avoid elimination by the immune system and to persist in the host. Acute infection of adult mice with the noncytopathic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) normally induces a protective cytotoxic T-cell response that also causes immunopathology. But some LCMV strains (such as DOCILE (LCMV-D) or Cl-13 Armstrong (Cl-13)) derived from virus carrier mice tend to persist after acute infection of adult mice without causing lethal immunopathological disease. Tendency to persist correlates with tropism, rapidity of virus spread and virus mutations. We report here that these LCMV isolates may persist because they induce most of the specific antiviral CD8+ cytotoxic T cells so completely that they all disappear within a few days and therefore neither eliminate the virus nor cause lethal immunopathology. The results illustrate that partially and sequentially induced (protective) immunity or complete exhaustion of T-cell immunity (high zone tolerance) are quantitatively different points on the scale of immunity; some viruses exploit the latter possibility to persist in an immunocompetent host.
非细胞病变或细胞病变程度低的病毒已发展出多种策略来避免被免疫系统清除并在宿主体内持续存在。成年小鼠急性感染非细胞病变性淋巴细胞性脉络丛脑膜炎病毒（LCMV）通常会诱导保护性细胞毒性T细胞反应，这也会导致免疫病理学变化。但是，一些源自病毒携带小鼠的LCMV毒株（如温顺型（LCMV-D）或Cl-13阿姆斯特朗株（Cl-13））在成年小鼠急性感染后往往会持续存在，而不会引起致命的免疫病理疾病。持续存在的倾向与嗜性、病毒传播速度和病毒突变有关。我们在此报告，这些LCMV分离株可能会持续存在，因为它们能如此彻底地诱导大多数特异性抗病毒CD8 +细胞毒性T细胞，以至于这些细胞在几天内全部消失，因此既不能清除病毒，也不会导致致命的免疫病理学变化。结果表明，部分且相继诱导的（保护性）免疫或T细胞免疫的完全耗竭（高区耐受）在免疫尺度上是数量上不同的点；一些病毒利用后一种可能性在免疫活性宿主体内持续存在。
