Axon myelin transfer of a non-enveloped virus.
We showed previously that Theiler's virus, a neurotropic non-enveloped picornavirus of mouse, traffics from the axon of infected neurons into the surrounding myelin. When this traffic is interrupted, as in the shiverer mouse which bears a mutation in the myelin basic protein gene, the virus is unable to persist in the central nervous system. In the present work, we used the Wld(s) mutant mouse, a strain in which axonal degeneration is considerably slowed down, to show that axon to myelin traffic takes place in the absence of axon degeneration. Our results suggest the existence of a mechanism of transfer of axonal cytoplasm into the myelin which Theiler's virus might exploit to ensure its persistence.
Roussarie
Jean-Pierre
JP
Department of Virology, URA3015 Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Ruffié
Claude
C
Edgar
Julia M
JM
Griffiths
Ian
I
Brahic
Michel
M
D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons; D005260:Female; D051379:Mice; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D009186:Myelin Sheath / Q000502:physiology*; D009900:Optic Nerve / Q000821:virology; D012160:Retina / Q000821:virology; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017945:Theilovirus / Q000502:physiology*