Natural, genetically determined resistance toward influenza virus in hemopoietic mouse chimeras. Role of mononuclear phagocytes.

Abstract

Radiation chimeras produced by crosswise transfers of bone-marrow cells among histocompatible mice susceptible or genetically resistant to lethal challenge by a number of myxoviruses were used to test whether macrophage resistance (as assessed in vitro) and resistance of the animal (as measured in vivo) brought about by the gene Mx were causally related. Chimeras (49) were tested individually for resistance of their macrophages to in vitro challenge with M-TUR (a strain of avian influenza virus A/Turkey/England/63 adapted to grow in cultured mouse peritoneal macrophages) and for resistance of the animal in vivo upon challenge with pneumotropic, neurotropic or hepatotropic influenza viruses. Cultivated Kupffer cells and peritoneal macrophages harvested from chimeric mice expressed the resistance phenotype of the bone-marrow donor irrespective of the host environment in which they had differentiated. Susceptibility or resistance in vivo was according to the genotype of the host. Inborn resistance of radiation chimeras was independent of Mx-gene expression in cells of the hemopoietic system.