Studies on the Interactions between Viruses and Lymphocytes

The study of immunity to viruses has made some remarkable contributions to our present under-standing of immune mechanisms. Historically, the first descriptions of the delayed-type hypersensitiv-ity reaction and of immunologic memory were given by Jenner in 1798 in his "An Enquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae vacciniae," in which he observed, "It is remarkable that variolus matter, when the system is disposed to reject it, should excite inflammation more speedily than when it produces the Small Pox. " In 1908, von Pirquet reported the suppression f tuberculin hypersensitivity caused by intercurrent infection with measles. Most recently, the histocompati-bility antigen restrictions on activation and effector activities of T lymphocytes derive from the work of Doherty et al. (1976) on cell-mediated immunity to LCM and ectromelia infection. The basis for much of the work to be described derives from observations from a great many labora-tories indicating that resting lymphocytes are non-permissive for a variety of viruses, and that lympho-cytes activated by mitogens rapidly acquire the capacity to replicate such viruses as vesicular stomatitis virus (Edelman and Wheelock 1966),