NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES IN BORNA-DISEASE VIRUS-INFECTED RATS

Borna disease is a neurologic syndrome caused by infection with a nons egmented, negative strand RNA virus, Borna disease virus. Infected ani mals have antibodies to two soluble viral proteins, p40 and p23, and a membrane-associated viral glycoprotein, gp18. We examined the time co urse for the development of neutralization activity and the expression of antibodies to individual viral proteins in sera of infected rats. The appearance of neutralizing activity correlated with the developmen t of immunoreactivity to gp18, but not p40 or p23. Monospecific and mo noclonal antibodies to native gp18 and recombinant nonglycosylated gp1 8 were also found to have neutralizing activity and to immunoprecipita te viral particles or subparticles. These findings suggest that gp18 i s likely to be present on the surface of the viral particles and is li kely to contain epitopes important for virus neutralization.