title: Distemper virus encephalitis exerts detrimental effects on hippocampal neurogenesis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite knowledge about the impact of brain inflammation on hippocampal neurogenesis, data on the influence of virus encephalitis on dentate granule cell neurogenesis are so far limited. Canine distemper is considered an interesting model of virus encephalitis, which can be associated with a chronic progressing disease course and can cause symptomatic seizures.
  
  
  METHODS
  To determine the impact of canine distemper virus (CDV) infection on hippocampal neurogenesis, we compared post-mortem tissue from dogs with infection with and without seizures, from epileptic dogs with non-viral aetiology and from dogs without central nervous system diseases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The majority of animals with infection and with epilepsy of non-viral aetiology exhibited neuronal progenitor numbers below the age average in controls. Virus infection with and without seizures significantly decreased the mean number of neuronal progenitor cells by 43% and 76% as compared to age-matched controls. Ki-67 labelling demonstrated that hippocampal cell proliferation was neither affected by infection nor by epilepsy of non-viral aetiology. Analysis of CDV infection in cells expressing caspase-3, doublecortin or Ki-67 indicated that infection of neuronal progenitor cells is extremely rare and suggests that infection might damage non-differentiated progenitor cells, hamper neuronal differentiation and promote glial differentiation. A high inter-individual variance in the number of lectin-reactive microglial cells was evident in dogs with distemper infection. Statistical analyses did not reveal a correlation between the number of lectin-reactive microglia cells and neuronal progenitor cells.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data demonstrate that virus encephalitis with and without seizures can exert detrimental effects on hippocampal neurogenesis, which might contribute to long-term consequences of the disease. The lack of a significant impact of distemper virus on Ki-67-labelled cells indicates that the infection affected neuronal differentiation and survival of newborn cells rather than hippocampal cell proliferation.
authors: Institute of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmacy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
authors: E-L
authors: EL
authors: von Rüden
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Avemary
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Zellinger
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Algermissen
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Bock
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Beineke
authors: W
authors: W
authors: Baumgärtner
authors: V M
authors: VM
authors: Stein
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Tipold
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Potschka
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004216:Distemper / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology*; D004217:Distemper Virus, Canine / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D004285:Dogs; D004660:Encephalitis / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology; D018792:Encephalitis, Viral / Q000473:pathology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000209:etiology / Q000276:immunology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D055495:Neurogenesis / Q000502:physiology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology