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A novel sensitive approach for frequency analysis of measles virus-specific memory T-lymphocytes in healthy adults with a childhood history of natural measles

Children’s Hospital, University of Würzburg¹ and Department of Dermatology², Josef-Schneider-Str. 2, D-97080 Würzburg, Germany
Institute für Virologie und Immunobiologie, Versbacherstr. 7, D-97080 Würzburg, Germany³

Author for correspondence: Ralph Nanan. Fax +49 931 201 3720. e-mail nanan{at}mail.uni-wuerzburg.de

Measles virus (MV), a single-stranded negative-sense RNA virus, is an important pathogen causing almost 1 million deaths annually. Acute MV infection induces immunity against disease throughout life. The immunological factors which are responsible for protection against measles are still poorly understood. However, T-cell-mediated immune responses seem to play a central role. The emergence of new single-cell methods for quantification of antigen-specific T-cells directly ex vivo has prompted us to measure frequencies of MV-specific memory T-cells. As an indicator for T-cell activation IFN- production was measured. PBMC were analysed by intracellular staining and ELISPOT assay after stimulation with MV-infected autologous B-lymphoblastoid cell lines or dendritic cells. T-cell responses were exclusively seen with PBMC from MV-seropositive healthy adults with a history of natural measles in childhood. The median frequency of MV-specific T-cells was 0·35% for CD3⁺CD4⁺ and 0·24% for the CD3⁺CD8⁺ T-cell subset. These frequencies are comparable with T-cell numbers reported by other investigators for persistent virus infections such as Epstein–Barr virus, cytomegalovirus or human immunodeficiency virus. Hence, this study illustrates that MV-specific CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-cells are readily detectable long after the acute infection, and thus are probably contributing to long-term immunity. Furthermore, this new approach allows efficient analysis of T-cell responses from small samples of blood and could therefore be a useful tool to further elucidate the role of cell-mediated immunity in measles as well as in other viral infections.

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