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In Semliki Forest virus encephalitis, antibody rapidly clears infectious virus and is required to eliminate viral material from the brain, but is not required to generate lesions of demyelination

The Roslin Institute, Royal School of Veterinary Studies, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 1QH, UK

Correspondence
John K. Fazakerley
John.Fazakerley{at}ed.ac.uk

Semliki Forest virus (SFV) infection of the laboratory mouse provides a well-characterized tractable system to study the pathogenesis of virus encephalitis and virus induced demyelination. In µMT mice, which have no antibodies, infectious virus persisted in both the serum and the brain for several weeks, indicating that antibodies are required to eliminate infectious virus. In immunocompetent mice, virus infectivity in the brain was undetectable after the first week of infection, but virus RNA levels declined slowly. Following SFV infection, lesions of demyelination were present in the brains of both immunocompetent and µMT mice, indicating that antibodies are not required to generate lesions of demyelination.

A colour version of Fig. 2 is available with the online version of this paper.