Immune response to acute virus infection in the Syrian hamster. I. Studies on genetic restriction of cell-mediated cytotoxicity.

Syrian hamsters show evidence of classical T-cell-mediated immune reactivity to acute virus infection as judged by primary foot pad swelling, kinetics of in vitro cytotoxic activity, and virus specificity of cytotoxic effector cells. In spite of this, no evidence of genetic restriction is observed among the variety of allodisparate inbred strains tested. This virus-induced, cell-mediated killing extends across strain barriers despite strong cellular and serologic alloreactivity among some of the strains utilized. To account for the apparent lack of genetic restriction, we currently favor the hypothesis that all hamsters examined thus far share at least one class I MHC antigen. Since these animals differ at hamster loci which elicit MLR, GVHR, acute SGR, CML, and alloantibody, we presume class II MHC polymorphism exists in this species. The presence of putative class II MHC polymorphism without detectable class I MHC polymorphism is unusual among mammals examined to date, and of unknown biologic significance.