Virus infection of the CNS disrupts the immune-neural-synaptic axis via induction of pleiotropic gene regulation of host responses.

Treatment for many viral infections of the central nervous system (CNS) remains only supportive. Here we address a remaining gap in our knowledge regarding how the CNS and immune systems interact during viral infection. By examining the regulation of the immune and nervous system processes in a nonhuman primate model of West Nile virus neurological disease, we show that virus infection disrupts the homeostasis of the immune-neural-synaptic axis via induction of pleiotropic genes with distinct functions in each component of the axis. This pleiotropic gene regulation suggests an unintended off-target negative impact of virus-induced host immune responses on the neurotransmission, which may be a common feature of various viral infections of the CNS.

Citation

Olga A Maximova, Daniel E Sturdevant, John C Kash, Kishore Kanakabandi, Yongli Xiao, Mahnaz Minai, Ian N Moore, Jeff Taubenberger, Craig Martens, Jeffrey I Cohen, Alexander G Pletnev. Virus infection of the CNS disrupts the immune-neural-synaptic axis via induction of pleiotropic gene regulation of host responses. eLife. 2021 Feb 18;10

Mesh Tags

PMID: 33599611

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