Immunization-induced decrease of the CD4+:CD8+ ratio in cats experimentally infected with feline immunodeficiency virus.

In a previous experiment a group of 15 specified pathogen free (SPF) cats were experimentally infected with a Swiss isolate of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). A group of 15 SPF cats served as FIV negative controls. Nine cats of each group were vaccinated with a recombinant feline leukemia virus (FeLV) vaccine, six cats in each group with a placebo vaccine. All vaccinated cats developed high antibody titers to FeLV and were protected against subsequent FeLV challenge infection. In both control groups five of six cats became persistently infected with FeLV. Unexpectedly, the primary immune response to the vaccine antigen was significantly higher in the FIV positive group than in the FIV negative. The secondary response was stronger in the FIV negative cats. The goal of the present investigation was to further study the immune response in these 30 cats. They were immunized twice with the synthetic peptide L-tyrosine-L-glutamic acid-poly(DL-alanine)-poly(L-lysine) (TGAL) 21 days apart. Blood samples were collected on four occasions during the immunization process. They were tested for antibodies to TGAL, complete blood cell counts and CD4+, CD8+ and pan-T-lymphocyte counts. The following observations were made: (1) in contrast to the FeLV vaccine experiment, the primary immune response to TGAL was not significantly stronger in the FIV positive cats when tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (2). The absolute size of the CD4+ lymphocyte population was distinctly smaller in the FIV positive than in the FIV negative cats. The lowest CD4+ values were found in the dually FIV/FeLV infected cats. (3) A population of CD8+ lymphocytes was identified that was characterized by a distinctly weaker fluorescence. The size of this population increased in FIV positive and decreased in FIV negative cats during the TGAL immunization experiment. (4) The CD4+:CD8+ ratio increased in FIV negative cats during TGAL immunization from 1.9 to 2.3. In contrast, in FIV positive animals the CD4+:CD8+ ratio decreased significantly from 1.9 to 1.3 during the same period. From these and earlier data it was concluded that in short-term FIV infection the immune response to T-cell dependent antigens may be increased over that of the controls. Immune suppression develops gradually with duration of the infection. The significant drop of the CD4+:CD8+ ratio over a 5 week immunization period suggests that antigenic stimulation may accelerate the development of immune suppression in FIV positive cats. If this is a general feature, FIV infection may provide a particularly interesting model for studying the pathogenesis of AIDS.