Review
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Polyomavirus wakes up and chooses neurovirulence
Version 1
: Received: 30 September 2023 / Approved: 2 October 2023 / Online: 2 October 2023 (11:04:11 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Butic, A.B.; Spencer, S.A.; Shaheen, S.K.; Lukacher, A.E. Polyomavirus Wakes Up and Chooses Neurovirulence. Viruses 2023, 15, 2112. Butic, A.B.; Spencer, S.A.; Shaheen, S.K.; Lukacher, A.E. Polyomavirus Wakes Up and Chooses Neurovirulence. Viruses 2023, 15, 2112.
Abstract
JC polyomavirus (JCPyV) is a human-specific polyomavirus that establishes a silent lifelong infection in multiple peripheral organs, predominantly those of the urinary tract, of immunocompetent individuals. In immunocompromised settings, however, JCPyV can infiltrate the central nervous system (CNS), where it causes several encephalopathies of high morbidity and mortality. JCPyV-induced progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a devastating demyelinating brain disease, was an AIDS-defining disease pre-antiretroviral therapy that has “reemerged” as a complication of immunomodulating and chemotherapeutic agents. No effective anti-polyomavirus therapeutics are currently available. How depressed immune status sets the stage for JCPyV resurgence in the urinary tract, how the virus evades pre-existing antiviral antibodies to become viremic, and where/how it enters the CNS are incompletely understood. Addressing these questions requires a tractable animal model of JCPyV CNS infection. Although no animal model can replicate all aspects of any human disease, mouse polyomavirus (MuPyV) in mice and JCPyV in humans share key features of peripheral and CNS infection and antiviral immunity. In this review, we will discuss evidence suggesting how JCPyV migrates from the periphery to the CNS, innate and adaptive immune responses to polyomavirus infection, and how the MuPyV-mouse model is providing insights into the pathogenesis of JCPyV CNS disease.
Keywords
JCPyV; MuPyV; polyomavirus; progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML); CNS; antiviral immunity; neurotropic virus
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Virology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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