Response of Germ-Free Animals to Experimental Virus Monocontamination. I. Observation on Coxsackie B Virus.

Abstract

Summary An inadvertent monocontami-nation of germ-free mice with a so-called “non-pathogenic”strain of an albus variant of Staphylococcus aureus was observed to enhance the systemic resistance of suckling mice to lethal infections with Coxsackie B virus in doses ranging from 0.1 to 10 LD₅₀. The response of germ-free suckling mice to intraperitoneal injections of virus was uniform, with mortality seeming to be independent of the dose of virus. Mortality was not observed after a post-inoculation interval of 7 days, although there was significant persistence of virus in the brain and other organs of the germ-free mice.