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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.

Authors: Jean-Pierre Roussarie, Claude Ruffié, Julia M. Edgar, Ian Griffiths, Michel Brahic

To read the original journal article, click here.

(This journal article was originally published in PLoS. Open Access.)