Specificity and in vitro transfer of the immunosuppressive effectof detergent-disrupted influenza virus vaccine

Abstract

SUMMARY Primed murine splenocytes give an in vitro antibody response to influenza whole virus vaccine(WVV), as measured by enzyme immunoassay (EIA). When subunit vaccine (SV) of cither influenzaA or influenza B virus was added to in vitro splenocyte cultures stimulated with WVV, the EIAantibody response to homologous WVV was reduced. This reduction in antibody response wasobserved when SV was prepared using zwitterionic detergent (empigen BB). non-ionic detergent(triton-X-100) or cationic detergent cetyl-trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB); it was found to beeffected only by SV of strains of the same virus subtype—when SVs prepared from a helerotypic(H3N2) strain, an H1N1 strain and an influenza B strain were added to splenocyte cultures in thepresence of WVV. When splenocytes from immunologically naive mice, exposed in vitro to SV, weretransferred to secondary cultures of primed splenocytes, the antibody response to WVV in thesecondary cultures was also reduced. Mechanisms that may suppress the in vitro antibody responseare discussed.