Dal Canto M C, Rabinowitz S G
J Neurol Sci. 1981 Mar;49(3):397-418. doi: 10.1016/0022-510x(81)90030-7.
Arboviruses are important pathogens for both animals and humans. Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus (VEEV) is an arbovirus whose pathogenicity for grey matter structures has been previously studied. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to describe extensive inflammation and demyelination in spinal cord white matter of mice infected with VEEV. To probe a possible immunepathogenesis of white matter alterations in this infection, nude mice and heterozygous controls were similarly infected. Whereas controls still showed inflammatory demyelination, nude mice showed no white matter changes in the absence of a mononuclear inflammatory response. These results suggest that white matter changes in VEEV infection are dependent upon the host immune-response, rather than produced by primary viral cytolytic activity. Such findings are similar to those we and others obtained in a number of different viral infections and support the possibility that the host immune response may be the common denominator leading to myelin injury in a variety of viral diseases. The hypothesis of "by-stander killing" of myelin is discussed as a possible host-mediated mechanism of demyelination in viral infections.
虫媒病毒是动物和人类的重要病原体。委内瑞拉马脑炎病毒（VEEV）是一种虫媒病毒，其对灰质结构的致病性此前已得到研究。据我们所知，本研究首次描述了感染VEEV的小鼠脊髓白质中广泛的炎症和脱髓鞘现象。为探究这种感染中白质改变可能的免疫发病机制，对裸鼠和杂合对照进行了类似感染。对照组仍显示出炎症性脱髓鞘，而裸鼠在缺乏单核炎症反应的情况下未出现白质变化。这些结果表明，VEEV感染中的白质变化依赖于宿主免疫反应，而非由原发性病毒溶细胞活性产生。这些发现与我们和其他人在多种不同病毒感染中获得的结果相似，并支持宿主免疫反应可能是导致多种病毒性疾病中髓鞘损伤的共同因素这一可能性。“旁观者杀伤”髓鞘的假说被作为病毒感染中脱髓鞘的一种可能的宿主介导机制进行了讨论。
