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Journal of Virology, August 2007, p. 8571-8578, Vol. 81, No. 16
0022-538X/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00160-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Measles Virus-Specific CD4 T-Cell Activity Does Not Correlate with Protection against Lung Infection or Viral Clearance

Karen Pueschel,¹ Annette Tietz,¹ Mary Carsillo,² Michael Steward,⁴ and Stefan Niewiesk^1,2,3*

Institut fuer Virologie und Immunbiologie, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany,¹ Department of Veterinary Biosciences,² Department for Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio,³ Immunology Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom⁴

Received 24 January 2007/ Accepted 25 May 2007

Acute measles in children can be prevented by immunization with the live attenuated measles vaccine virus. Although immunization is able to induce CD4 and CD8 T cells as well as neutralizing antibodies, only the latter have been correlated with protective immunity. CD8 T cells, however, have been documented to be important in viral clearance in the respiratory tract, whereas CD4 T cells have been shown to be protective in a mouse encephalitis model. In order to investigate the CD4 T-cell response in infection of the respiratory tract, we have defined a T-cell epitope in the hemagglutinin (H) protein for immunization and developed a monoclonal antibody for depletion of CD4 T cells in the cotton rat model. Although the kinetics of CD4 T-cell development correlated with clearance of virus, the depletion of CD4 T cells during the primary infection did not influence viral titers in lung tissue. Immunization with the H epitope induced a CD4 T-cell response but did not protect against infection. Immunization in the presence of maternal antibodies resulted in the development of a CD4 T-cell response which (in the absence of neutralizing antibodies) did not protect against infection. In summary, CD4 T cells do not seem to protect against infection after immunization and do not participate in clearance of virus infection from lung tissue during measles virus infection. We speculate that the major role of CD4 T cells is to control and clear virus infection from other affected organs like the brain.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Veterinary Biosciences, The Ohio State University, 1925 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: (614) 688-4257. Fax: (614) 292-6473. E-mail: niewiesk.1{at}osu.edu

Published ahead of print on 6 June 2007.

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Journal of Virology, August 2007, p. 8571-8578, Vol. 81, No. 16
0022-538X/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00160-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

This article has been cited by other articles:

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