Cross-reactive Immunity among Different Serotypes of Virus Causing Haemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome

Abstract

SUMMARYSpleen cells primed by Prospect Hill (PH) or Puumala (Pu) virus could cross-react with Hantaan virus (HV) 76-118 strain-infected target cells after in vitro stimulation with HV-infected cells, although anti-PH or anti-Pu immune serum showed no crossreactive neutralizing (NT) activity to HV without complement. These results and our previous findings with cross-reactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) suggest that some epitopes recognized by CTLs might be common among the hantavirus genus, while the epitopes related to NT activity were mainly specific to each virus of this genus. Next, to evaluate the cross-reactive immunities demonstrated by in vitro study, we investigated the effect of transferring T lymphocytes and sera from BALB/c mice immunized with PH or Pu virus into nude mice before HV inoculation. Transferring T lymphocytes primed by PH or Pu virus reduced HV titres in lungs and spleens of nude mice, corresponding with the results of the in vitro CTL assays. Transferring anti-Pu immune serum also decreased HV titres in nude mice, which seemed to reflect complement-dependent NT activity. Moreover ICR mice previously immunized with PH or Pu virus showed resistance to challenge with a lethal dose of the HV KHF strain, indicating that cross-reactive immunity induced by PH or Pu virus could protect ICR mice against pathogenic HV infection.

Persistent hantavirus infections: characteristics and mechanisms

“…Laboratory studies have shown that, in the absence of a competent T-cell response, nude rats succumb rapidly to Seoul virus infection, suggesting that cell-mediated immunity plays an important role in controlling infection 40 . In laboratory mice, cytotoxic T cells were found to crossreact with distantly related hantaviruses better than neutralizing antibodies did; cell-mediated immunity, therefore, could also be important for broadening the hosts' immune response 41 .…”

DNA Vaccination with the Hantaan Virus M Gene Protects Hamsters against Three of Four HFRS Hantaviruses and Elicits a High-Titer Neutralizing Antibody Response in Rhesus Monkeys

“…Investigators have evaluated the capacity of sera from various species (including humans) infected with hantaviruses to crossneutralize other hantaviruses (3,7,15,16,18). Different species, and different individuals within a species, appear to exhibit differing levels of cross-neutralizing antibodies.…”

Identification and analysis for cross-reactivity among hantaviruses of H-2b-restricted cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitopes in Sin Nombre virus nucleocapsid protein

“…On the other hand, CTLs in HTN-infected mice play an important role in protection and recovery from persistent infection (Araki et al, 2003;Asada et al, 1988;Nakamura et al, 1985a, b). Although CTLs induced by HTN or Seoul virus (SEO) infection are cross-reactive, HTN infection induced a higher CTL response than SEO infection in spite of similar levels of antibody responses to these viruses and virus replication (Asada et al, 1989). SEO is less pathogenic in humans than HTN, suggesting that the difference in CTL induction might influence their pathogenicity.…”