A Soluble Antigen of Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis

Abstract

Anti-soluble substance antibodies and neutralizing substances, which develop following infection with the virus of lymphocytic choriomeningitis, appear to be separate entities. The times of appearance and regression of the two antibodies are different in both man and the guinea pig; the antisoluble substance antibodies appear earlier and remain a shorter time. Moreover, mice develop them but no demonstrable neutralizing substances. Injection of formalin-treated, virus-free extracts containing considerable amounts of soluble antigen fails to elicit anti-soluble substance antibodies and to induce immunity in normal guinea pigs; administration of such preparations to immune pigs, however, is followed by a marked increase in the titer of anti-soluble substance antibodies in their serum. On the other hand, suspensions of formolized washed virus are effective in normal guinea pigs in stimulating both anti-soluble substance antibodies and protective substances, and in inducing immunity to infection.

Atypical Pneumonia and Psittacosis

“…MATERIALS (28) for demonstrating fixation with choriomeningitis materials, a modification of the procedure described for the psittacosis test was adopted in order to simplify the work. The two methods gave equally satisfactory results with choriomeningitis, but the former was less desirable for psittacosis.…”

“…Samples of serum from each patient were titered for antibodies against the soluble antigen of choriomeningitis over the range of dilutions from 1: 2 to 1: 32. Previous work had demonstrated that these immune substances are detectable in human sera during only a few weeks in convalescence, i.e., usually between the third and sixth weeks (28). Therefore, results were recorded as negative only for those patients whose sera taken during this period failed to fix complement in the presence of soluble antigen.…”

Persistent infection of the mouse with the virus of lymphocytic choriomeningitis

“…It becomes detectable around the eighth day and soon reaches moderate titres of 64 to 128 as is shown in Fig. 7 (Traub and Schafer, 1939;Smadel and Wall, 1940;Weigand and Hotchin, 1961;Volkert, Larsen, and Pfau, 1964;Larsen, 1968;1969b;Lewis and Clayton, 1969). By way of contrast, neutralizing antibody does not appear till the fourth week after infection, and the titres increase slowly reaching maximum values between 50 and 100 days (Fig.…”

Arenavirus Variations Due to Host-Specific Adaptation

“…Some of them are refractory to disease [14,86,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144]. Arenaviruses co-evolved with their natural host but little is known about those processes in other animals and the implication for pathogenesis.…”