Antibodies to varicella-zoster virus modulate antigen distribution but fail to induce viral persistence in vitro

Autor: Bernard Rentier, Jacques Piette, Linda Lebon, Catherine Sadzot-Delvaux, M. P. Merville-Louis, Ph. Marc
Rok vydání: 1992
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Virology. 66:7499-7504
ISSN: 1098-5514
0022-538X
DOI: 10.1128/jvi.66.12.7499-7504.1992
Popis: Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) persists in human sensory ganglia. One of the hypotheses to explain the induction or the maintenance of VZV latency is that it could be promoted by the immune response itself. It is known that in the case of viruses which bud off the infected cell membrane, virus-specific antibodies can induce antigenic modulation, i.e., spatial redistribution of viral antigens and modulation of their synthesis. To determine whether antigenic modulation occurs during VZV infection in vitro and could possibly be involved in viral persistence, we have grown infected cells in the presence of anti-VZV antibodies either transiently or permanently. The distribution of immune complexes and viral proteins was then analyzed. In transient immunomodulation experiments, the distribution of one or more viral antigens was modified not only in the cytoplasmic membranes but also in the cytoplasm and nucleoplasm of infected cells. When infected cells were kept permanently in the presence of antibodies, the same pattern of redistribution of immune complexes was observed and the localization of internal viral glycoproteins was significantly modified. However, antibodies did not prevent the lytic effect of infection; they altered neither the infectious virus yield nor the Western immunoblot pattern of viral proteins, suggesting that immunomodulation is not the primary effector of viral persistence.
Databáze: OpenAIRE