Bone marrow chimeras reveal non-H-2 hematopoietic control of susceptibility to Theiler's virus persistent infection

Abstract

The DA strain of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus persists in the white matter of the spinal cords of susceptible mice. Previous results showed that the difference in susceptibility to viral persistence between the susceptible SJL/J strain and the resistant B10.S strain was due to multiple non-H-2 loci. The respective roles of hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic cells in this difference have been evaluated with bone marrow chimeras. The results show that non-H-2 loci with a major effect on susceptibility are expressed in hematopoietic cells. However, the study of the SJL.B10-D10Mit180-D10Mit74 congenic line suggests that other loci expressed in nonhematopoietic cells also play a role.

FIG. 1.

Viral RNA load at 45 days p.i. in the spinal cords of mice reconstituted with syngeneic bone marrow and of control mice of the same genotype. The amount of viral RNA is expressed as the highest RNA dilution which gave a hybridization signal in a dot blot assay. Left ordinate, dilution factor; right ordinate, score (the dilution number in the series). B → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow; C → C, SJL congenic mice reconstituted with SJL congenic bone marrow; S → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with SJL bone marrow.

FIG. 2.

Surface staining of spleen cells from representative mice reconstituted with either syngeneic or allogeneic bone marrow. S → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with SJL bone marrow; S → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with SJL/J bone marrow; B → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow; B → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow.

FIG. 3.

Viral RNA load at 45 days p.i. in the spinal cords of the nine chimeras. The amount of viral RNA is expressed as the highest RNA dilution which gave a hybridization signal in a dot blot assay. Left ordinate, dilution factor; right ordinate, score (the dilution number in the series). B → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow; C → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with SJL congenic bone marrow; S → B, B10.S mice reconstituted with SJL/J bone marrow; B → C, SJL congenic mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow; C → C, SJL congenic mice reconstituted with SJL congenic bone marrow; S → C, SJL congenic mice reconstituted with SJL bone marrow; B → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with B10.S bone marrow; C → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with SJL congenic bone marrow; S → S, SJL/J mice reconstituted with SJL bone marrow.