[The detection and quantitative analysis of viral antigens, infiltrating mononuclear cells, IFN-gamma, LT and IL-6 bearing cells in the frozen brain tissue sections from a patient with herpes simplex encephalitis by immunocytochemistry]

Abstract

To identify viral antigens, the types of infiltrating mononuclear cells and cytokine bearing cells, the frozen brain tissue sections form a patient with herpes simplex encephalitis who died on 12th hospital days, were examined by immunocytochemistry methods and combined immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization. The avidin-biotin peroxidase complex (ABC) techniques were applied for the detection of antigens. All monoclonal antibodies to Leu series and polyclonal antisera to lymphotoxin (LT), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) were purchased form Becton Dickinson Co., and Genzyme Co., (USA) respectively. A large number of neurons and glial cells staining positively HSV-1 antigens were found in the gray matter. Moreover, although a moderate number of HLA-DR (Ia) positive cells were found in the parenchyma, there were few cells displaying positively for Leu-3a, Leu-2a and Leu-7 respectively. To evaluate the number of positive cells appeared in the brain tissues, Leu stain for 4, 2a, 3a, 7, 12 and HLA-DR demonstrated 1.6%, 0.4%, 0.9%, 0.7% and 10% respectively. In addition, numerous number of IFN-gamma positive cells were detected around the lesion and randomly distributed thoroughly the lesion. IL-6 positive cells and LT positive cells were also similar in distribution to IFN-gamma positive cells. Moreover, in simultaneous detection of HLA-DR and HSV-1 mRNA by the combined immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization, there were seen glial cells staining positively for HLA-DR (Ia) and several cells with mRNA.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)