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The current status and future directions of myxoma virus, a master in immune evasion - PubMed

  • ️Sat Jan 01 2011

Review

The current status and future directions of myxoma virus, a master in immune evasion

Bart Spiesschaert et al. Vet Res. 2011.

Abstract

Myxoma virus (MYXV) gained importance throughout the twentieth century because of the use of the highly virulent Standard Laboratory Strain (SLS) by the Australian government in the attempt to control the feral Australian population of Oryctolagus cuniculus (European rabbit) and the subsequent illegal release of MYXV in Europe. In the European rabbit, MYXV causes a disease with an exceedingly high mortality rate, named myxomatosis, which is passively transmitted by biting arthropod vectors. MYXV still has a great impact on European rabbit populations around the world. In contrast, only a single cutaneous lesion, restricted to the point of inoculation, is seen in its natural long-term host, the South-American Sylvilagus brasiliensis and the North-American S. Bachmani. Apart from being detrimental for European rabbits, however, MYXV has also become of interest in human medicine in the last two decades for two reasons. Firstly, due to the strong immune suppressing effects of certain MYXV proteins, several secreted virus-encoded immunomodulators (e.g. Serp-1) are being developed to treat systemic inflammatory syndromes such as cardiovascular disease in humans. Secondly, due to the inherent ability of MYXV to infect a broad spectrum of human cancer cells, the live virus is also being developed as an oncolytic virotherapeutic to treat human cancer. In this review, an update will be given on the current status of MYXV in rabbits as well as its potential in human medicine in the twenty-first century.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

MYXV worldwide distribution. The global distribution of MYXV during the period 01/07/2009-31/12/2009 (copied from [152).

Figure 2
Figure 2

The pathogenesis of nodular myxomatosis. At the site of inoculation (A) viral replication occurs first in the peripheral epidermal cells and then in cells deeper in the dermis (B). This initially induces only a mild primary inflammation and mainly attracts neutrophils at early times. Resident Major Histocompatibility Complex-2 (MHC-2) positive cells, such as Langerhans cells, are also infected (C) [2,12,13]. When these cells migrate to the draining lymph node to present viral epitopes in the T-cell zone, they also traffic live virus and T-lymphocytes become infected with MYXV as well (D). This results in wide spread cell death in the T-cell zone of many lymphoid organs and also enables MYXV to spread in a cell-associated manner when these infected T-lymphocytes migrate through the blood and reticuloendothelial circulation. Once in the blood and lymph, MYXV spreads via infected leukocytes to different organs such as the liver, spleen, other distant lymph nodes, testis and epidermis (E). The MYXV replication in these organs induces a strong polymorphonuclear (PMN) cell-influx and in the skin secondary lesions are formed that contain high viral titers, favoring successful spread by mechanical vectors (F) [2,12].

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