Fundamental and Applied Research for Animals & Health (FARAH), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Sart Tilman B43, B-4000 Liège, Belgium.
Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research, 20359 Hamburg, Germany.
Viruses. 2020 Feb 8;12(2):189. doi: 10.3390/v12020189.
Usutu virus (USUV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that shares many similarities with the closely related West Nile virus (WNV) in terms of ecology and clinical manifestations. Initially distributed in Africa, USUV emerged in Italy in 1996 and managed to co-circulate with WNV in many European countries in a similar mosquito-bird life cycle. The rapid geographic spread of USUV, the seasonal mass mortalities it causes in the European avifauna, and the increasing number of infections with neurological disease both in healthy and immunocompromised humans has stimulated interest in infection studies to delineate USUV pathogenesis. Here, we assessed the pathogenicity of two USUV isolates from a recent Belgian outbreak in immunocompetent mice. The intradermal injection of USUV gave rise to disorientation and paraplegia and was associated with neuronal death in the brain and spinal cord in a single mouse. Intranasal inoculation of USUV could also establish the infection; viral RNA was detected in the brain 15 days post-infection. Overall, this pilot study probes the suitability of this murine model for the study of USUV neuroinvasiveness and the possibility of direct transmission in mammals.
乌苏图病毒（USUV）是一种蚊媒黄病毒，在生态和临床表现方面与密切相关的西尼罗河病毒（WNV）有许多相似之处。最初分布在非洲，USUV 于 1996 年在意大利出现，并成功地与 WNV 在许多欧洲国家以类似的蚊-鸟生活周期共同传播。USUV 的快速地理传播、它在欧洲鸟类中引起的季节性大量死亡，以及在健康和免疫功能低下的人群中越来越多的神经疾病感染，激发了人们对感染研究的兴趣，以描绘 USUV 的发病机制。在这里，我们评估了最近在比利时爆发的免疫功能正常的小鼠中的两种 USUV 分离株的致病性。USUV 的皮内注射导致定向障碍和截瘫，并与大脑和脊髓中的神经元死亡有关在一只老鼠中。鼻内接种 USUV 也可以建立感染；感染后 15 天在大脑中检测到病毒 RNA。总的来说，这项初步研究探讨了这种小鼠模型用于研究 USUV 神经侵袭性和哺乳动物中直接传播的可能性。
