Abstract
In contrast to wild-type Pseudorabies virus (PrV), which infects the central nervous system mainly via fibres of the trigeminal and autonomous nerves, the PrV mutant PrV-9112C2, deleted in glycoprotein B but expressing its bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV-1) homologue, was shown to infect the swine central nervous system (CNS) via the olfactory route. In this study application of PrV-9112C2 into the nose of mice resulted in CNS infection as described for wild-type PrV. These findings indicate that gB(BHV−1)-dependent changes in PrV's capability to infect swine olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are not prominent in mice and give evidence for viral entry receptors present in swine but not mice OSNs.
This work was supported by the International Graduate School of Neuroscience (IGSN) and the Graduiertenkolleg “Development and Plasticity of the Nervous System: Molecular, Synaptic and Cellular Mechanisms,” University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany. Monoclonal anti-gB(BHV−1) antibody was kindly provided by G. Keil (Riems).