Elicitation of natural killer cells in beige mice by infection with vesicular stomatitis virus.

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infection of beige (bg/bg) mice induced levels of natural killer cytolytic activity comparable to that of uninfected normal bg/+ controls, but considerably less than natural killer activity in VSV-infected bg/+ mice. In contrast, VSV-infected bg/bg and bg/+ mice had essentially equivalent amounts of anti-VSV cytotoxic T-lymphocyte and antibody activity. VSV infection induced comparable levels of interferon in both bg/bg and bg/+ mice. Therefore, the decreased natural killer activity in bg/bg mice could not be attributed to an inability to produce interferon.