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Immunologic Defences Against Intracellular Viruses

Some viruses disseminate from infected cells to adjacent non-­infected cells without thelysisof infected cells.Extracellular mechanisms are, therefore, ineffective against this mode of virus spread from cell to cell. The immune response to these viruses involves both destruction of infected cells and elemination of the infectious agents.

The antigenic stimulus may be either the virus or the altered antigenicity of the infected cell. The full spectrum of immune effectors is deployed when the immunologic response is directed against an altered cellular surface. These immune effectors include (l) cytotoxic antibody, (2) lymphocyte-dependent antibody (LDA), (3) activated macrophages, (4) lymphokines, and (5) direct lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity (DLMC).