Hemagglutinin variants of reovirus type 3 have altered central nervous system tropism.

Variants of the Dearing strain of reovirus type 3 with antigenically altered hemagglutinin proteins are much less neurovirulent than the parental virus. When injected intracerebrally into mice these variants infected a subset of the brain neurons that were infected by the parental virus. When injected intraperitoneally, the variants did not spread to the brain. These results indicate that minor modifications of the reovirus hemagglutinin dramatically alter the ability of the virus to spread into and injure the central nervous system.