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

亚急性硬化性全脑炎（SSPE）是由麻疹病毒（MV）持续感染引起的中枢神经系统（CNS）退行性疾病。由于MV不能有效地感染或进入神经细胞，因此MV如何在中枢神经系统传播并引起疾病是SSPE发病机制中值得关注的问题之一。在这项研究中，我们报告了几个突变的MV F基因的多个SSPE株，大大提高了病毒的融合。此外，我们证明了这些融合增强突变对MV在CNS中的传播有重要贡献。因此，这表明阻断MV介导的融合有可能成为SSPE的良好治疗方法。

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.