Long-term persistence of ECTV-specific CD8 T cell responses correlates with persistence of virus genomes in the BM and blood.

<p>For data shown in panels A-E, groups of 6 BALB/c mice were infected with 500 PFU ECTV-IFN-γbp^Δ and functional and phenotypic assays done on days 7 till day 177. (A) Percent specific lysis of ECTV-infected, ⁵¹Cr-labelled P815 targets by splenocytes from infected mice at 100:1 effector: target ratio. (B) Percent specific lysis of ECTV peptide determinant-pulsed, ⁵¹Cr-labelled P815 targets by splenocytes from infected mice at 100:1 effector: target ratio. (C) Kinetics of ECTV-specific (total) IFN-γ⁺ CD8 T cells numbers. (D) Kinetics of ECTV peptide determinant-specific IFN-γ⁺ CD8 T cell numbers. (E) Kinetics of peptide-MHC class I tetramer⁺ CD8 T cell numbers. (F) Kinetics of ECTV genome copy numbers in BM. (G) Kinetics of ECTV genome copy numbers in blood. The limit of virus genome detection is 10 copies, shown by the dotted line. Data shown in panels F and G are from the same experiment in which 5 mice infected with 500 PFU ECTV-IFN-γbp^Δ were sacrificed on the indicated days but qRT-PCR assay run on the same day.