SUMMARYMacrophage in¯ammatory protein 1a (MIP-1a), a member of the CC-chemokine subfamily, is known to induce chemotaxis of a variety of cell types in vivo. Although the role of MIP-1a in in¯ammatory responses generated following primary infection of mice with many different pathogens has been characterized, the in¯uence of this chemokine on the generation of antigen-speci®c T-cell responses in vivo is less well understood. This is important, as virus-speci®c CD8T lymphocytes (CTL) play a crucial role in defence against viral infections, both acutely and in the long term. In this study, we compared the ability of wild-type and MIP-1a-de®cient (MIP1aÀ/À) mice to mount CTL responses speci®c for the immunodominant epitope derived from in¯uenza nucleoprotein (NP366±374). In¯uenza-speci®c CTL responses were compared with respect to frequency, cytotoxic activity and ability to clear subsequent infections with recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing the in¯uenza NP. The results indicate that antiviral CTL generated in MIP-1aÀ/À mice are slightly impaired in their ability to protect against a subsequent infection. However, impaired in vivo CTL-mediated antiviral protection was found to be associated with reduced cytotoxicity rather than with a failure of the CTL to migrate to peripheral sites of infection.

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