Blood Transfusion as a Means for Transmission of Retrovirus-Induced Lymphoproliferative Disease in Mice

Abstract

Lymphoproliferative disease was elicited in C57BL/6KH and (BALB/c × C57BL/6)F1 hybrids by a single intraperitoneal injection of 10⁵ FFU of LP-BM5 virus preparation. The disease could reproducibly be transferred by a single intravenous transfusion of 0.2 ml of whole blood as well as 0.1 ml of blood cells, plasma or serum from the infected animals. F1 hybrids displayed a delayed development of the disease when an acellular virus preparation was administered, but they were fully susceptible to the disease when syngeneic blood from infected F1 donors was transfused. Blood from donors in the prodromal stage was as effective in transmission of the disease as blood from donors with fully developed disease. This indicated that in murine lymphoproliferative disease viremia develops very early in the course of the disease. It seems that using the blood transfusion one could develop a reliable semiquantitative assay for the infectiveness of the animals suffering from LP-MB5-induced lymphoproliferative disease.

Murine AIDS Induces Viremia and Functional and Phenotypic Alterations in Blood Cells

“…It has previously been demonstrated that transfer of whole blood, blood cells or plasma from LP-BM5 infected mice can induce MAIDS disease in transfused mice [13]. This suggests that virus is present in the blood in cell-associated and free form.…”

“…Due to the defective genome, only cells productively coinfected with a helper virus can be quantified by a recently established immunofocus assay using a specific antiserum to the gag p12 portion of the defective virus [17]. The fact that blood can transfer MAIDS [13]and that the ecotropic and MCF virus-infected and infectious cells can be detected in quantities and infection frequencies similar to lymphoid organ suggests that infectious pseudotyped defective virus can also be released by blood cells. As a consequence, virus can use these cells to spread throughout the body.…”

“…Although hypergammaglobulinemia is associated with MAIDS [12]and can be analysed in the serum of mice, and blood from mice with MAIDS was shown to transfer disease [13], no detailed analysis of blood parameters has been made so far. Thus, we have investigated a number of hematological, immunological and virological parameters in the blood of mice infected with MAIDS virus to establish diagnostic parameters that would allow to monitor disease progression in individual mice.…”