Studies on adjuvant-induced arthritis, tumor transplantability, and serologic response to bovine serum albumin in Sendai virus-infected rats.

Sendai virus, one of the most prevalent of the murine viruses, was studied in regard to its capability to alter various functions of rats given a second, unrelated antigenic challenge. Rats given a single foot-pad injection of Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) had an 85% incidence of adjuvant arthritis. The adjuvant disease was significantly less severe (P less than 0.01) in those rats given 0.05 ml of 10(5.5) median egg infective doses of egg-propagated Sendai virus intranasally 7 days before injection of adjuvant. Rats given Sendai virus concurrently with the FCA, or any time after FCA was injected, did not have a lessened severity of the arthritic reaction, as compared with that in control animals. Sendai virus infection had no detectable effect on median tumor dose requirement for Walker carcinosarcoma cells in rats or on the antibody response to bovine serum albumin.