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There is about a 50% chance that you already have a cytomegalovirus (CMV), but do not worry, it's quite harmless in healthy adults. It has long been believed that the virus probably weakens the immune system in the elderly, but now the mouse tests have shown that the opposite is true – in a way, the virus gives a little delay to the immune system.
With CMV, you might have the impression that the insect has pbaded after the first minor influenza symptoms fade, but as a member of the family of herpes, he will stay with you for life. Given the prevalence of the virus, researchers undertook to study its effects on the immune system of the elderly.
"CMV does not usually cause external symptoms, but we still have to live with them every day because there is no cure," says Megan Smithey, an author of the study. Our immune system will always be busy in the background in the face of this virus. "
To investigate the bug, the team infected older mice with CMV and then introduced Listeria to see how they could cope. Interestingly, CMV-infected mice were more successful in combating the new virus than a control group without CMV.
"We hypothesized that this would make mice more vulnerable to other infections as they depleted the resources and kept the immune system busy, "says Smithey." We were completely surprised, we expected these mice to deteriorate, but they had a more robust and effective response to the infection. "
Although that researchers do not know exactly how CMV helps, they have the diversity of their T cells, the foot soldiers of the immune system. The higher the number of types of T cells circulating in the body, the better the immune system is ready to fight a series of different infections, and it is thought that this diversity naturally decreases with age
. found that both groups of mice had quite diverse T cells. Instead, the perceived decline is because not everyone is fighting against the infection. "It's as if the CMV emitted a signal that allows to obtain the best defenses on the ground," says Janko Nikolich-Žugich, an author of the study
. The team plans to study how CMV strengthens the immune system and to verify if the phenomenon also applies to human studies. If this is the case, the long-term goal could be a kind of "booster" of the immune system
The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . University of Arizona
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