In Semliki Forest virus encephalitis, antibody rapidly clears infectious virus and is required to eliminate viral material from the brain, but is not required to generate lesions of demyelination

Rennos Fragkoudis, Catherine M. Ballany, Amanda Boyd, John K. Fazakerley

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Semliki Forest virus (SFV) infection of the laboratory mouse provides a well-characterized tractable system to study the pathogenesis of virus encephalitis and virus induced demyelination. In mu MT mice, which have no antibodies, infectious virus persisted in both the serum and the brain for several weeks, indicating that antibodies are required to eliminate infectious virus. In immunocompetent mice, virus infectivity in the brain was undetectable after the first week of infection, but virus RNA levels declined slowly. Following SFV infection, lesions of demyelination were present in the brains of both immunocompetent and mu MT mice, indicating that antibodies are not required to generate lesions of demyelination.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2565-2568
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of General Virology
Volume89
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2008

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