Increased antibody responses to Herpes virus papio (HVP) ANTIGENS IN PRE‐LYMPHOMATOUS BABOONS (Papio hamadryas) of the sukhumi high lymphoma stock

Abstract

Antibody responses to Herpes virus papio (HVP) antigens were studied in 21 pre-lymphoma baboons (which subsequently died of malignant lymphoma), 21 paired controls, i.e. age-, sex- and population-matched healthy baboons, and 185 randomly selected healthy baboons of the same population. The sera were all collected at the same time and were tested blind in the fixed-cell indirect immunofluorescence test against HVP viral capsid antigen (VCA)-positive, early antigen (EA)-positive cell targets before and after absorption with HVP. Eleven of the pre-lymphoma sera were anti-EA-positive whereas none of the paired controls contained anti-EA. Anti-VCA titers of pre-lymphoma sera were higher than those of paired controls in thirteen cases. Only in four cases were anti-VCA titers of pre-lymphoma sera lower than those of paired controls. Qualitatively, the same results were obtained when anti-VCA and anti-EA titers of pre-lymphoma sera were compared with respective mean population values. The differences between pre-lymphoma group and control groups, especially in the case of anti-EA, were statistically highly significant. Thus, elevated anti-HVP titers in healthy baboons of the Sukhumi lymphoma-prone stock can be considered as a marker of high risk for development of malignant lymphoma.

A brief history of the discovery of natural simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infections in captive sooty Mangabey monkeys

“…Rhesus 8664 was euthanized in August, 1984 and cell suspensions from the retro-orbital tumor, an abdominal tumor mass or spleen were inoculated into six rhesus monkeys, including D915, which also developed a B-cell lymphoma (Figure 1) (31). Moreover, the transmissible Bcell lymphoma was found to be associated with an EBVlike herpes virus (42), similar to reports of lymphomainducing EBV-like viruses from other nonhuman primate species (43,44). Lymphoid (spleen) cells or tumor cells from D915 were sub-inoculated into four rhesus monkey recipients (31).…”