Figure 5.

Transfer of young whole bone marrow cells into aged hosts augments IFN-α levels and viral clearance in HSV-2-infected aged hosts in a pDC-dependent fashion. Aged C57BL/6 mice were adoptively transferred i.v. with 5×10⁶ whole or pDC-depleted bone marrow cells isolated from young C57BL/6 mice. A, Mice were infected with HSV-2 at 72h post-transfer, and serum IFN-α levels were measured by ELISA. B, Liver and spleen samples were isolated at 96h post-HSV-2 infection, and viremia was measured. *p<0.05 (Student's t-test). C, Aged mice were adoptively transferred with either 1×10⁴ young or aged pDCs from syngeneic donors 72 hours prior to infection with HSV-2. IFN-α responses were measured at 24h post-infection. Non-infected (denoted as control) and non-adoptively transferred infected controls (denoted as HSV-2) are shown. D, Viral load was measured in the liver and spleen from aged mice that were adoptively transferred with aged or young pDCs (N=3/group). Results are representative of data from at least two independent experiments with similar results.