Abstract
The following is a preliminary report on the relation of thiamin intake to the response of mice inoculated with the Lansing strain of murine poliomyelitis virus. 1 This investigation is part of a long-range program for the study of the relation of diet to resistance to infection.
In each of the 4 experiments summarized here, litters varying from 21 to 31 days of age were split among the groups being compared. Each mouse (except one uninjected group in Experiment I) was injected intracerebrally with 0.03 ml of a 0.5% suspension of mouse brain in saline. Normal mouse brain was used for the controls. Mouse brain infected with the Lansing strain of mouse-adapted poliomyelitis virus served as the virus inoculum. This amount of virus corresponded to between 10 and 100 fifty-percent-mortality doses.
Previous experience had shown that 100 μg of thiamin per 100 g of diet (called diet 100) cover the needs of the growing mouse and that 10 μg per 100 g of diet (called diet 10) lead to signs of deficiency within 15 days.
The first 3 experiments, totaling 646 mice, failed to show any significant difference between mortality of groups on diet 100 inoculated with virus and those on diet 10 inoculated with virus, injected with normal brain, or uninjected. The incidence of paralysis, on the other hand, was markedly greater in the high-thiamin than in the low-thiamin groups inoculated with virus.
Averaging the 3 experiments (each of which was carried 21 days after inoculation), mice which were placed on diet 10 for 15 to 20 days before inoculation with the virus and were continued on it, showed 13% paralysis compared with 74% in the mice on diet 100 for the same period of time.
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