title: Induction and expression of protective T cells during Mycobacterium avium infections in mice.
abstract: Mycobacterium avium is an opportunistic pathogen that infects individuals suffering from chronic lung disease or immunocompromised patients such as AIDS patients. Here we show that a highly virulent isolate of M. avium proliferated as extensively in T cell deficient as in immunocompetent mice. T cell deficient mice allowed a progressive growth of a less virulent AIDS-derived isolate of M. avium while immunocompetent mice arrested the growth of this isolate. Adoptive transfer of T cell enriched spleen cells between congenic strains of mice differing at the Bcg/Ity/Lsh locus showed that only naturally resistant BALB/c.Bcgr (C.D2) mice infected with the highly virulent strain of M. avium or the naturally susceptible BALB/c mice infected with the lower virulence isolate developed protective T cells and that these cells only mediated protection when transferred to naturally susceptible, but not to naturally resistant, mice. Both strains of M. avium proliferated in bone marrow-derived macrophages cultured in vitro and they were both susceptible to the bacteriostatic effects induced in the macrophages by crude lymphokines produced by concanavalin A-stimulated spleen cells.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Citologia Experimental (Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica), University of Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Appelberg
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pedrosa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D007109:Immunity; D007121:Immunocompetence / Q000276:immunology; D016219:Immunotherapy, Adoptive; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008264:Macrophages / Q000382:microbiology; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D009162:Mycobacterium avium / Q000254:growth & development / Q000276:immunology* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D014774:Virulence