Analysis of the quantity of antiviral antibodies from mink infected with different Aleutian disease virus strains.

Mink persistently infected with Aleutian disease virus (ADV) develop hypergammaglobulinaemia and immune complex disease. Radiolabelled antibodies from mink infected with ADV-G, DK, Pullman , and Utah I strains of ADV were reacted against all four ADV strains in radioimmunoassay (RIA). The amount of anti-ADV antibody in two equally hypergammaglobulinaemic serum pools varied from 13% (anti- Pullman ) to 57% (anti-Utah I). Serum pools from two other sources (anti-DK and anti-ADV-G), although less hypergammaglobulinaemic , had 5% and 13%, respectively, indicating that 43-95% of the Ig in the sera of mink with AD was not specific antibody to ADV structural antigens. The possibility of a general polyclonal activation of the humoral immune system is being discussed. Comparison of plateau RIA binding levels for the four serum pools against the four viral antigens suggested three patterns of reactivity: DK and Utah I reacted similarly, but Pullman and ADV-G reacted serologically different.