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Infection and Immunity, November 2000, p. 6223-6232, Vol. 68, No. 11
0019-9567/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Lack of CD4+ T Cells Does Not Affect Induction of CD8+ T-Cell Immunity against Encephalitozoon cuniculi Infection

Magali Moretto,1 Lori Casciotti,1 Brigit Durell,1 and Imtiaz A. Khan1,2,*

Departments of Microbiology1 and Medicine,2 Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire 03756

Received 20 April 2000/Returned for modification 22 May 2000/Accepted 27 July 2000

Cell-mediated immunity has been reported to play an important role in defense against Encephalitozoon cuniculi infection. Previous studies from our laboratory have underlined the importance of cytotoxic CD8+ T lymphocytes (CTL) in survival of mice infected with E. cuniculi. In the present study, immune response against E. cuniculi infection in CD4+ T-cell-deficient mice was evaluated. Similar to resistant wild-type animals, CD4-/- mice were able to resolve E. cuniculi infection even at a very high challenge dose (5 × 107 spores/mouse). Tissues from infected CD4-/- mice did not exhibit higher parasite loads in comparison to the parental wild-type mice. Conversely, at day 21 postinfection, susceptible CD8-/- mice had 1014 times more parasites in the liver compared to control wild-type mice. Induction of the CD8+ T-cell response in CD4-/- mice against E. cuniculi infection was studied. Interestingly, a normal antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell response to E. cuniculi infection was observed in CD4-/- mice (precursor proliferation frequency, 1/2.5 × 104 versus 1/104 in wild-type controls). Lack of CD4+ T cells did not alter the magnitude of the antigen-specific CTL response (precursor CTL frequency; 1/1.4 × 104 in CD4-/- mice versus 1/3 × 104 in control mice). Adoptive transfer of immune CD8+ T cells from both CD4-/- and wild-type animals prevented the mortality in CD8-/- mice. E. cuniculi infection thus offers an example of an intracellular parasitic infection where CD8+ T-cell immunity can be induced in the absence of CD4+ T cells.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, HB 7506, One Medical Center Dr., Lebanon, NH 03756. Phone: (603) 650-8706. Fax: (603) 650-6841. E-mail: Imtiaz.Khan{at}dartmouth.edu.

Infection and Immunity, November 2000, p. 6223-6232, Vol. 68, No. 11
0019-9567/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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