Role of Interferon Induction in the Protective Activity of Rabies Vaccines

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Abstract
Inactivated rabies vaccine of tissue-culture origin, Kern Canyon vaccine, or influenza-virus vaccine, given shortly before or immediately after challenge with street rabies virus, protected the majority of hamsters against death. All three vaccines stimulated circulating interferon. Hamsters treated with bacterial endotoxin and given rabies vaccine 24 hr before challenge were not as well protected and produced less interferon. When vaccination preceded challenge by five days or more, only rabies virus vaccine rendered the animals immune and resistant to infection. These results suggest that interferon induced by vaccines administered at or near the time of challenge may play a role in protection from rabies. Concentrated rabies vaccines also induced interferon in rabbits and in cell cultures of human and rabbit origin. Live-virus vaccine induced more interferon than did inactivated vaccine. Interferon was not induced by the administration of rabies vaccine to rabies-immune rabbits. In hamster and human cell cultures treated with homologous interferon, growth of rabies virus was inhibited; treatment with heterologous interferon did not have this effect. Thus, rabies virus was also shown to be susceptible in vitro to the antiviral effect of interferon.

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