Summary
In mice infected intraperitoneally with a hundred per cent lethal dose of West Nile virus a significant reduction in mortality was found if treatment with the complex of synthetic polyriboinosinic and polycytidylic acids (Poly I∶C) was given four hours prior to or twenty hours after virus challenge.
Treatment induced large amounts of circulating interferon a few hours after inoculation. Only a slight difference in maximum viraemia in the various groups was found, but viraemia developed later in the mice given Poly I∶C a few hours before virus injection. Infection of the brain developed later in the groups treated with Poly I∶C.
Using various doses of West Nile virus almost the same mortality was found in the group given a lethal virus dose but treated with Poly I∶C and the group receiving sublethal virus dose and no Poly I∶C treatment. Maximum of viraemia was high in the former group, while in the latter group it was significantly lower. Therefore it is supposed that Poly I∶C in these experiments did not protect through an interferon mediated suppression of the viraemia but rather through an effect of the interferon exerted directly upon the target organ. A reduction of circulating HI antibodies was found in the group on which Poly I∶C had the most pronounced effect.
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Haahr, S. The influence of Poly I∶C on the course of infection in mice inoculated with West Nile Virus. Archiv f Virusforschung 35, 1–9 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01249747
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01249747