Visualization of Poliovirus Type III in Paraffin Sections of Monkey Spinal Cord by Indirect Immuno-fluorescence

Molecular Pathogenesis of Neural Lesions Induced by Poliovirus Type 1

“…Indirect evidence of viral replication in motor neurons of primates and mice has already been reported by other authors, who detected poliovirus by electron microscopy (Bodian, 1964;Blinzinger et aL, 1969), by immunofluorescence (Kovacks et al, 1963;Kanamitsu et al, 1967;Jubelt et al, 1980a) or by immunocytochemical methods (Hashimoto et al, 1984;Dal Canto et al, 1986). Using quantification of silver grains in motor neurons of monkeys paralysed after infection with virulent PV-1/$1-39-C6, we have shown that the maximum number of viral genomes found in degenerating motor neurons was quite similar to the maximum number of viral genomes in poliovirus-infected cells in vitro just before the cytopathic effect.…”

“…Such an approach is extremely attractive for the study of poliomyelitis pathogenesis, since there is controversy about which cells of the central nervous system (CNS) are permissive for poliovirus. In the past, it was generally accepted that damage of motor neurons, inducing poliomyelitic paralysis, was generated by multiplication of poliovirus in that particular cell type (Kovacks et al, 1963;Bodian, 1964). However, Simon et al (1970) reported that virus-specific antigen was not detected by immunofluorescence in any neurons of the CNS from monkeys infected with poliovirus, whereas antigen was observed in glial, vascular endothelial and mononuclear inflammatory cells.…”