Studies on the Unmasking and/or Carrier Effects of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Grown in Human Lymphocytes

Abstract

Phytohemagglutinin-stimulated human lymphocytes were infected with vesicular stomatitis virus VSV and used to absorb raw and purified horse anti-lymphocyte serum ALS. The residual activity of such sera was then assayed in cytotoxicity tests, using the radiochrome release technique and target labelled lymphocytes from nine donors. In comparison with appropriate controls, the capacity of human lymphocytes to absorb out the cytotoxic activity of either type of ALS was not modified after VSV infection. It appears that, in the experimental conditions described, VSV does not exert any masking, unmasking or carrier effect of surface antigens of human lymphocytes, contrary to what has been reported in other systems.