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. 1974 Oct;27(4):711–721.

Protection against Toxoplasma gondii in mice immunized with Toxoplasma cell fractions, RNA and synthetic polyribonucleotides

F G Araujo, J S Remington
PMCID: PMC1445724  PMID: 4215743

Abstract

Mice immunized with fractions obtained by centrifugation of disrupted Toxoplasma gondii trophozoites as well as with 200 μg of Toxoplasma ribonucleic acid (RNA) were resistant (as measured by time to death and total mortality) to challenge with Toxoplasma 30 days later. When mice were challenged at 15 days no protection was noted. A dose of 50 μg of Toxoplasma RNA was effective in protecting mice against lethal challenge only when incorporated into Freund's incomplete adjuvant. In studies performed to determine the specificity of the resistance observed, resistance was also noted in mice immunized with 200 μg of RNA extracted from normal mouse peritoneal macrophages, as well as in mice immunized with 100 μg of the synthetic polyribonucleotide polycytidylic acid. Polyadenylicuridylic acid conferred protection only when incorporated into Freund's incomplete adjuvant and polyinosinic—cytidylic acid had no effect. The protection induced by Toxoplasma RNA was eliminated by prior treatment of the preparation with ribonuclease but not by treatment with pronase, suggesting that the moiety responsible for the protective effect was RNA. In experiments designed to explore the mechanism of resistance in the vaccinated mice, macrophages harvested from mice which had been injected with Toxoplasma RNA 15 days earlier were found to be activated in that they resisted challenge with Listeria monocytogenes.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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