INFLUENCE OF HOST FACTORS ON NEUROINVASIVENESS OF VESICULAR STOMATITIS VIRUS

Abstract

It will be well to restate the main problem at this point and to examine how far the accumulated data can help to elucidate it. The problem is this: Why are old mice generally resistant to all forms of peripheral inoculation of vesicular stomatitis virus when intracerebral injection is equally fatal for mice of all ages? The results of experiments in which the presence of virus was demonstrated by animal passage suggested that the reason can perhaps be found in (a) the different mechanisms of virus progression after intracerebral and peripheral injection, and (b) the development with age of localized barriers capable of halting the spread of virus (1, 2). The present study sought histological evidence for the nature of virus progression and for the changes observed in the older animals. The results clearly demonstrate that after intracerebral injection virus spreads along an open system, the lesions being distributed almost entirely in contiguity with the ventricles and their extensions, while after peripheral inoculations the evidence points to progression of the virus in a closed system of neurons and their processes, at least in the stage preceding neuronal necrosis, the distribution of lesions depending upon the central connections of the primary neurons connected with the inoculated site. Thus, in young mice, nasal instillation of the virus was followed by necrosis of a long chain of neurons, starting with those in the olfactory mucosa and progressing through specific zones of the olfactory pathway, pursuing the same order in which the various regions are known to have their major connections with one another. It is important to note that after nasal instillation the apparent lesions were present where the cell bodies of the neurons are situated, and not along the tracts connecting one group of neurons with another, which accounts for the lack of contiguity between the affected zones and the normal appearing, intervening areas. The assumption that the primary progression of the virus in this case occurs in a closed system is based on the absence of lesions in unrelated areas contiguous to those which are necrotic and to the tracts which connect one affected zone with another.