Study of pathogenesis for SSPE caused by measles virus infection and development of the antiviral drug

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Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a fatal degenerative disease caused by persistent measles virus (MV) infection in the central nervous system (CNS). It was one of concerns in SSPE pathogenesis how MV could spread in the CNS and cause disease, because MV inefficiently infects or enters neural cells. In this study, we report that several mutations in the MV F gene of multiple SSPE strains, greatly enhanced virus fusion. Moreover, we demonstrated that these fusion-enhancing mutations critically contributed to MV spread in the CNS. Therefore, it is suggested that blocking MV-mediated fusion has a potential to be a good therapeutic approach for SSPE.