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Infectious diseases

Gaining entry to the CNS

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 6, page 6 (2005)Cite this article

PML results from infection of oligodendrocytes by JCV, so how does the virus gain entry to these cells? From a series of in vitro experiments, Elphick and colleagues obtained several pieces of evidence to indicate that it latches on to 5-HT receptors. It has previously been shown that glia can be rendered resistant to JCV infection by certain drugs of the serotonin–dopamine inhibitor (SDI) class. Elphick et al. showed that dopamine-receptor-specific drugs were considerably less effective at blocking JCV infection than drugs that inhibited both dopamine and 5-HT receptors, so they focused their attention on the 5-HT receptors.

The authors found that JCV infection of glial cells could be inhibited by 5-HT2A-receptor (5-HT2AR) antagonists or anti-5-HT2AR monoclonal antibodies. In the reverse experiment, they asked whether 5-HT2AR could confer susceptibility to JCV infection on cells that do not normally express this receptor. The 5-HT2AR-negative HeLa cell line is usually resistant to JCV infection, but when these cells were transfected with a 5-HT2AR-expressing construct, they could be readily infected by JCV.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Elphick, G. F. et al. The human polyomavirus, JCV, uses serotonin receptors to infect cells. Science 306, 1380–1383 (2004)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Eash, S. et al. Differential distribution of the JC virus receptor-type sialic acid in normal human tissues. Am. J. Pathol. 164, 419–428 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Heather Wood
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Wood, H. Gaining entry to the CNS. Nat Rev Neurosci 6, 6 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1601

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1601

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