ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews cell-mediated immune responses in some of the common neoplastic and nonneoplastic viral infections of poultry. For each neoplastic virus infection, it describes the characteristics of the disease caused by the virus followed by a description of the cell-mediated immune response of the host and the role of this immunity in pathogenesis of the disease. The chapter demonstrates that viral antigens served as the target antigens for immune effector cells. Lymphocyte transformation in response to infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) antigens was described by Timms et al. Peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) from infected chickens proliferated following cultivation with IBV antigens. The secondary responses in vaccinated challenged birds were not consistently higher than the primary responses of birds which received only the challenge infection. Indirect evidence for the role of cellular immunity is provided by experiments performed in bursectomized chickens.
