Fig. 7: MuHV-4 infection improves the effector CD8 T cells response against PVM.

a–g Thirty days after i.n. Mock or MuHV-4 infection, BALB/c mice were vaccinated with FI-PVM. Ags (or ctrl Ags), then challenged i.n. with 3·10² PFU of PVM (or PBS) and euthanized 7 days later. Experimental outline (a). Absolute numbers of total lung leucocytes (live CD45⁺) and effector memory T cells (live CD45⁺ non-autofluorescent CD11c⁻CD11b^-CD3⁺CD8⁺CD62L^-CD44 ^hi); frequency and absolute numbers of IFNγ⁺ effector memory T cells after restimulation with PMA and ionomycin during 4 h before intracellular staining (b). Representative flow dot plots of CD8 T cells and IFNγ⁺ CD8 T cells (live CD45⁺ non-autofluorescent CD11c⁻CD11b^-CD3⁺CD8⁺CD62L⁻CD44^hi) (c). Representative flow dot plots (d) and total numbers (e) of MuHV-4 specific ORF65^131–140 H-2Kd tetramer and PVM specific P^261–270 H-2Kd tetramer stainings of lung cells 7 days after PVM challenge. Representative flow dot plots (f) and total numbers (g) of lung IFNγ⁺ CD8 T cells (live CD45⁺ non-autofluorescent CD11c⁻CD11b⁻CD3⁺CD8⁺CD62L⁻CD44^hi) after restimulation with MuHV-4 specific peptides (M2^91–99 and ORF65^131–140) or with PVM specific peptides (P^261–269 and F^304–313) during 4 h before intracellular staining. Data are presented as means ± SEM. *P ≤ 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01 and ***P ≤ 0.001 (one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post-tests). Data are representative of two independent experiments.