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Measles viral load may reflect SSPE disease progression - PubMed

  • ️Sun Jan 01 2006

Measles viral load may reflect SSPE disease progression

M Kühne Simmonds et al. Virol J. 2006.

Abstract

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a rare, slowly progressive neurological disorder caused by the persistent infection with measles virus (MV). Despite much research into SSPE, its pathology remains obscure. We examined autopsy tissues of eight SSPE patients by real time quantitative PCR, immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting to determine viral load. MV N, M and H gene RNA could be detected in the central nervous system (CNS) of all patients and in two non-CNS tissues of one patient. The viral burden between patients differed up to four-fold by quantitative PCR and corresponded with detection of MV protein. The level of both viral RNA and antigen in the brain may correlate with disease progression.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

Detection of MV RNA by quantitative PCR in SSPE tissue samples. N (A), M (B) and H (C) RNA are shown and expressed as copy per ng total RNA and as percentage of detected GAPDH RNA. Values <1 were converted to 1 before logarithmic transformation. The results of one experiment are shown, representative for two with M an H genes and 3 with N gene. The error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals of duplicate samples.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Detection of MV N protein by immunohistology. CNS tissue samples of three patients were analysed, and non-CNS tissues of two of them. The following sections are shown here. (A, B) UK111, brain. (C) UK98, frontal lobe. (D) UK98, parietal lobe. (E) UK98, occipital lobe. (F) UK98, temporal lobe. (G) UK585, frontal lobe. (H) UK585, temporal lobe. Original magnification 10 ×, unless otherwise indicated.

Figure 3
Figure 3

Detection of MV N protein in tissue samples by immunoblotting. Tissues were homogenised, lysed and protein denatured, before separating equal amounts of total protein by SDS-PAGE, Western blot analysis with a MV N specific antibody and chemiluminescent detection. M: weight marker.

Figure 4
Figure 4

Relationship between viral load, disease duration and M gene substitutions. Linear correlation of log10 of viral load with (A) disease duration (●) and persistence from initial infection to sample date (□) or (B) number of amino acid (●) and nucleotide (□) substitutions in the MV M gene. R2 values are indicated for each correlation. For patients UK98 and UK111, where length of persistence is not precisely known, an average was calculated from shortest and longest possible duration of persistence.

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