DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF THE IMMEDIATE-EARLY AND EARLY ANTIGENS IN NEURONAL AND GLIAL-CELLS OF DEVELOPING MOUSE BRAINS INFECTED WITH MURINE CYTOMEGALOVIRUS
Y. Shinmura et al., DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF THE IMMEDIATE-EARLY AND EARLY ANTIGENS IN NEURONAL AND GLIAL-CELLS OF DEVELOPING MOUSE BRAINS INFECTED WITH MURINE CYTOMEGALOVIRUS, The American journal of pathology, 151(5), 1997, pp. 1331-1340
Brain disorders induced by congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection
may appear at a later time after birth as a consequence of persistent
infection and/or the activation of a latent infection of the neural ce
lls. We have analyzed the infection dynamics of the neural cells in th
e neonatal mouse brains infected with murine CMV (MCMV) in the late st
age of gestation. First we prepared a rat monoclonal antibody to the m
ajor immediate-early (IE)-89K antigen and then used the antibody for c
omparison of the expression of early and late viral genes in the devel
oping mouse brains. The cells expressing the IE-89K antigen were mostl
y localized in the ventricular and subventricular zones and were prefe
rentially double stained with anti-glial fibrillary acidic protein and
anti-nestin antibodies. In contrast, the cells expressing the early n
uclear antigen, detected by the monoclonal antibody D5, were diffusely
distributed in the cortex and the hippocampus and were mostly double
labelled with anti-neuron-specific enolase antibody. In neonatal mouse
brains infected congenitally with recombinant MCMV, which expressed l
acZ as a late gene, the number of the early nuclear antigen-positive c
ells was much higher than that of the beta-galactosidase-expressing ce
lls, the number of which was almost the same as that of the IE-89K ant
igen-positive cells. In addition, the distribution of viral DNA-rich c
ells detected by DNA-DNA hybridization was similar to that of the IE-8
9K antigen-positive cells. These results suggest that CMV may persiste
ntly infect neuronal cells, whereas lyric infection may preferentially
occur in the glial cells in the developing brain.