Intracerebral inoculation of rhesus monkeys with a strain of measles virus isolated from a case of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

Measles virus isolated from the brain of a patient with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis was injected intracerebrally (ic) into 34 rhesus monkeys. Groups of these animals were injected with measles antigen in Freund's complete adjuvant or treated by schedules used for suppression of the general or cell-mediated immune responsiveness. In another group of animals, experimental allergic encephalitis was induced parallel with measles infection. Measles virus was isolated from the brains of monkeys up to 13 days after ic inoculation. No virus was detected in the central nervous system after 3 to 4 weeks, the longest postinoculation period examined. It was concluded that the subacute sclerosing panencephalitis-derived virus either lost its neurotropic properties at the passage level at which it was used or that it submerged into a silent stage and escaped detection. Neither immunosuppression nor concomitant autoimmune encephalitis had an effect on the survival of measles virus in the central nervous system. The histology of the nervous tissue was basically normal except for characteristic lesions of experimental allergic encephalitis in animals receiving the respective treatment.