Antiviral action of immune lymphocytes in mice infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus.

Spleen cells from immunized mice were shown to have a strong antiviral action after transfusion into infected recipients. Spleen, liver, and lung titers in recipients were reduced within 24 hr, but there was no detectable effect on brain titer. Spleen cells were active if taken 6 days after infection of donors, when no antibody was detectable. Spleen cell activity was diminished, but by no means abolished, by treatment with potent anti-theta antibody. Immune spleen cells transferred to mice infected 3 days earlier induced early signs of sickness but no change in average survival time. Normal mice injected intracerebrally with a mixture of immune spleen cells plus virus showed unusually early illness and death.