CYTOTOXIC THYMUS-DERIVED LYMPHOCYTES IN CEREBROSPINAL FLUID OF MICE WITH LYMPHOCYTIC CHORIOMENINGITIS

Abstract

The fatal neurological disease occurring in adult mice injected intracerebrally (IC) with lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM) virus is apparently induced by massive invasion of leukocytes (1, 2) into the central nervous system (CNS).Dosing with antithymocyte serum or cyclophosphamide (2, 3) prevents cellular infiltration: mice survive as asymptomatic carriers.Adoptive induction of this inflammatory process, by injecting immune spleen cells into immunosuppressed recipients, depends on presence of specific thymus-derived lymphocytes (T cells) in the transferred cell population (4).Such lymphocytes can now be assayed in vitro by measuring release of radioactivity from 51Cr-labeled target cells infected with L C M virus (5, 6).The present paper gives evidence that these cytotoxic T cells are found in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of mice with clinical LCM.This is, to our knowledge, the first direct demonstration of specifically sensitized lymphocytes in a virus-induced inflammatory exudate.