Abstract

Parameters of disease progression in long-term experimental feline retrovirus (feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukemia virus) infections: hematology, clinical chemistry, and lymphocyte subsets. R Hofmann-Lehmann , E Holznagel , P Ossent and H Lutz Department of Internal Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. rhofmann@vetklinik.unizh.ch ABSTRACT After several years of latency, feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukemia virus (FeLV) cause fatal disease in the cat. The aim of this study was to determine laboratory parameters characteristic of disease progression which would allow a better description of the asymptomatic phase and a better understanding of the pathogenesis of the two infections. Therefore, experimentally infected cats (FIV and/or FeLV positive) and control animals were observed over a period of 6.5 years under identical conditions. Blood samples were analyzed for the following: complete hematology, clinical chemistry, serum protein electrophoresis, and determination of CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocyte subsets. The following hematological and clinical chemistry parameters were markedly changed in the FIV-infected animals from month 9 onwards: glucose, serum protein, gamma globulins, sodium, urea, phosphorus, lipase, cholesterol, and triglyceride. In FeLV infection, the markedly changed parameters were mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, aspartate aminotransferase, and urea. In contrast to reports of field studies, neither FIV-positive nor FeLV-positive animals developed persistent leukopenia, lymphopenia, or neutropenia. A significant decrease was found in the CD4+/CD8+ ratio in FIV-positive and FIV-FeLV-positive animals mainly due to loss of CD4+ lymphocytes. In FeLV-positive cats, both CD4+ and, to a lesser degree, CD8+ lymphocytes were decreased in long-term infection. The changes in FIV infection may reflect subclinical kidney dysfunction, changes in energy and lipid metabolism, and transient activation of the humoral immune response as described for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. The changes in FeLV infection may also reflect subclinical kidney dysfunction and, in addition, changes in erythrocyte and immune function of the animals. No severe clinical signs were observed in the FIV-positive cats, while FeLV had a severe influence on the life expectancy of persistently positive cats. In conclusion, several parameters of clinical chemistry and hematology were changed in FIV and FeLV infection. Monitoring of these parameters may prove useful for the evaluation of candidate FIV vaccines and antiretroviral drugs in cats. The many parallels between laboratory parameters in FIV and HIV infection further support the importance of FIV as a model for HIV. CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Mendeley Reddit StumbleUpon Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article Clin Vaccine Immunol January 1997 vol. 4 no. 1 33-42 » Abstract PDF Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in ASM journals Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of CVI Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Copyright Information Books from ASM Press MicrobeWorld Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Citing articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hofmann-Lehmann, R. Articles by Lutz, H. Search for related content PubMed PubMed citation Articles by Hofmann-Lehmann, R. Articles by Lutz, H. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Mendeley Reddit StumbleUpon Twitter What's this? current issue November 2011, volume 18, issue 11 Alert me to new issues of CVI About CVI Subscribers Authors Reviewers Advertisers Inquiries from the Press Permissions & Commercial Reprints ASM Journals Public Access Policy CVI RSS Feeds 1752 N Street N.W. • Washington DC 20036 202.737.3600 • 202.942.9355 fax • journals@asmusa.org Print ISSN: 1556-6811 Online ISSN: 1556-679X Copyright © 2011 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to CVI .asm.org, visit: http://intl- CVI .asm.org | More Info» var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5821458-5"); pageTracker._trackPageview();