Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Dissecting Innate Immune Signaling in Viral Evasion of Cytokine Production
Published on: March 2, 2014
Role of CXCR3 in the immune response to murine gammaherpesvirus 68
Bong Joo Lee1, Francesca Giannoni, Ashley Lyon
1College of Veterinary Medicine, Chonnam National University, Gwanju, South Korea.
Abstract:
The chemokine IP-10 (CXCL10) and its cellular receptor CXCR3 are upregulated in the lung during murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68) infection. In order to determine the role of the CXCR3 chemokine receptor in the immune response to MHV-68, CXCR3-/- mice were infected with the virus. CXCR3-/- mice showed delayed clearance of replicating MHV-68 from the lungs. This correlated with delayed T-cell recruitment to the lungs and reduced cytolytic activity prior to viral clearance. Splenomegaly and the numbers of latently infected cells per spleen were transiently increased. However, CXCR3-/- mice showed normal virus-specific antibody titers and effective long-term control of MHV-68 infection.

