Cellular immune response to hog cholera virus (HCV): T cells of immune pigs proliferate in vitro upon stimulation with live HCV, but the E1 envelope glycoprotein is not a major T-cell antigen.

T-cell responses of pigs to hog cholera virus (HCV) have reportedly been absent or difficult to detect. Therefore, little is known about cellular immunity to HCV. In this study, we used an attenuated strain of pseudorabies virus expressing the envelope glycoprotein E1 of HCV and purified recombinant E1 to examine whether the E1 protein is a target antigen recognized by the T cells of HCV-immune pigs. We were unable to identify the E1 protein as a major target antigen recognized by the T cells of HCV-immune animals. However, such cells proliferated in vitro upon stimulation with viable HCV antigen. The lymphoproliferative response to HCV was strictly time and dose dependent and could be induced upon stimulation by live but not by UV light-inactivated HCV. Depletion studies demonstrated that lymphoproliferation depended on the presence of CD2+CD8bright+ lymphocytes, but CD2+CD4+ cells also contributed to the lymphoproliferative response. The primary lymphoproliferative response in animals inoculated with 10(7) 50% tissue culture infective doses of strain Brescia 2.1.1 was stronger than that observed in animals inoculated with 10(3) 50% tissue culture infective doses of the Cedipest strain. A remarkable finding was the increase in non-antigen-specific lymphoproliferation upon inoculation of the animals with HCV strains. This immunological phenomenon may mask a specific T-cell response to the virus.