- Neurotropic virus
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A neurotropic virus is a virus which is capable of infecting nerve cells[1], or which does so preferentially. Such viruses thereby largely evade the usual immune response—which acts only within the blood system.
Contents
Terminology
A disease agent is said to be neuroinvasive if it is capable of entering or infecting the central nervous system, and neurovirulent if it is capable of causing disease within the nervous system. The most common neuroinvasive viruses are rabies, which has both high neuroinvasiveness and high neurovirulence, and herpes simplex virus, which has low neuroinvasiveness and high neurovirulence. Others, like poliovirus, can spread neurally, but primarily spread by via the blood system in what is called hematogenous dissemination.
Examples
Neurotropic viruses that cause acute infection include Japanese Encephalitis, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, and California encephalitis viruses; polio, coxsackie, echo, mumps, measles, influenza, and rabies as well as diseases caused by members of the family Herpesviridae such as herpes simplex, varicella-zoster, cytomegalo and Epstein-Barr viruses[2].
Those causing latent infection include herpes simplex and varicella-zoster viruses. Those causing slow virus infection include measles, rubella and JC viruses, and retroviruses such as human T-lymphotropic virus 1 and human immunodeficiency virus.
Research use
Neurotropic viruses are increasingly been exploited as research tool, and for their potential use in treatment. In particular they are being used to improve the understanding of the nervous systems circuits[3][4]
Other neurotropic infections
Several diseases, including transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease resemble a slow neurotropic virus infection—but are in fact caused by the infectious proteins known as prions.
See also
- Blood-brain barrier
- Immunology
- Pathogen
- Virulent
References
Categories:- Viruses
- Virus stubs
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