Lack of Effect of Murine Norovirus Infection on the CD4 CD45RB T-cell Adoptive Transfer Mouse Model of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Murine norovirus (MNV) infection is highly prevalent in laboratory mice. Although MNV infection does not typically induce clinical disease in most laboratory mice, infection may nonetheless affect mouse models of disease by altering immune responses. We previously reported that MNV altered the bacterial-induced mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) using -infected mice. Therefore, we hypothesized that MNV infection would exacerbate another mouse model of IBD, the T-cell adoptive transfer (AT) model. In this model, infection is used to accelerate the progression of IBD induced by AT of naïve CD4+CD45RB T cells into B6.129S7- /J () mice. We evaluated the effects of MNV infection in both Helicobacter-accelerated as well as Helicobacter-free AT models. In our studies, Helicobacter-infected mice that received CD4+CD45RB T cells through AT rapidly developed weight loss and typhlocolitis; MNV infection had no effect on disease severity or rate of progression. In the absence of infection, progression of IBD caused by AT of CD4+CD45RB T cells was slower and typhlocolitis was less severe; this inflammation likewise was unaltered by MNV infection. These results indicate that MNV infection does not alter IBD progression and severity in the CD4+CD45RB T-cell AT model in mice.