Susceptibility to Pneumocystis carinii infection: host responses of neonatal mice from immune or naive mothers and of immune or naive adults

Mice from either naive or immunized dams were given intranasal inoculations of Pneumocystis carinii as neonates (24 to 48 h old). Lung P. carinii burdens increased through day 13 postinoculation in all pups and declined to nearly undetectable numbers by day 23 in pups from immune mothers. However, P. carinii numbers in pups from naive mothers did not begin to decline significantly until after day 33, and P. carinii organisms were still detectable in low numbers through day 45. In contrast, the lungs of naive or immunized adult mice contained detectable numbers of P. carinii organisms only up to 9 or 3 days, respectively, after inoculation. The onset of clearance of P. carinii organisms from the lungs of neonatal mice and naive adults was coincident with infiltration of neutrophils and CD4+ CD45RBlo cells into the alveolar spaces and increased titers of P. carinii-specific antibody in sera. Immunized dams had high levels of P. carinii-specific antibody in both their sera and milk, and pups from these dams had higher titers of P. carinii-specific antibody than did pups from naive dams. These data indicate that P. carinii survives for a much longer period in neonates than in adult mice, which is the result of a delay in the onset of the immune response in neonates. Furthermore, immunized mothers contributed to an early clearance of P. carinii organisms by their offspring presumably because of the transfer of P. carinii-specific antibody. However, the passively acquired antibody did not seem to have an effect until the neonates began to mount their own responses.