Mode of Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE) Virus Infection in Tissue Culture Cells

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Cell‐to‐cell transmission in the pathogenesis of human T‐lymphotropic virus type 1‐associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis

“…In SSPE, the disease is slowly progressive despite the presence of strikingly high titers of antibody to the measles virus in serum and cerebrospinal fluid, suggesting that the antibody cannot prevent the virus spread in the brain . So‐called SSPE virus can be recovered only by co‐cultivation of the brain cells with tissue culture cells susceptible to measles virus, and the virus can only be passaged by co‐cultivation with a fresh monolayer culture of susceptible cells, suggesting that no cell‐free infectious virus is produced or only a very small amount of virus is produced . This is one mechanism involving fusion of an infected cell's plasma membrane with the membrane of a neighboring cell, resulting in the development of syncytia (multinucleated cells).…”