title: Expression of interferon gamma in the brain of cats with natural Borna disease virus infection.
abstract: Borna disease virus (BDV) is a neurotropic, negative-stranded RNA virus, which causes a non-suppurative meningoencephalomyelitis in a wide range of animals. In cats, BDV infection leads to staggering disease. In spite of a vigorous immune response the virus persists in the central nervous system (CNS) in both experimentally and naturally infected animals. Since the CNS is vulnerable to cytotoxic effects mediated via NK-cells and cytotoxic T-cells, other non-cytolytic mechanisms such as the interferon (IFN) system is favourable for viral clearance. In this study, IFN-γ expression in the brain of cats with clinical signs of staggering disease (N=12) was compared to the expression in cats with no signs of this disease (N=7) by quantitative RT-PCR. The IFN-γ expression was normalised against the expression of three reference genes (HPRT, RPS7, YWHAZ). Cats with staggering disease had significantly higher expression of IFN-γ compared to the control cats (p-value ≤ 0.001). There was no significant difference of the IFN-γ expression in BDV-positive (N=7) and -negative (N=5) cats having clinical signs of staggering disease. However, as BDV-RNA still could be detected, despite an intense IFN-γ expression, BDV needs to have mechanisms to evade this antiviral immune response of the host, to be able to persist.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P.O. Box 7028, SE-75007 Uppsala, Sweden. Jonas.Wensman@slu.se
authors.forename: Jonas Johansson
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wensman
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ilbäck
authors.forename: Elina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hjertström
authors.forename: Anne-Lie
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Blomström
authors.forename: Malin Hagberg
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Gustavsson
authors.forename: Karin Hultin
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Jäderlund
authors.forename: Bodil
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ström-Holst
authors.forename: Sándor
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Belák
authors.forename: Anna-Lena
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Berg
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001890:Borna Disease / Q000276:immunology*; D001891:Borna disease virus; D001921:Brain / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000821:virology; D002371:Cat Diseases / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000821:virology*; D002415:Cats; D005260:Female; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000662:veterinary
chemical_list: D007371:Interferon-gamma