Role of the Spike Protein in Murine Coronavirus Induced Hepatitis: An in vivo Study Using Targeted RNA Recombination

Abstract

Various strains of the murine Coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), have been shown to display different organ tropism and pathogenesis, including enteritis, encephalitis, demyelination and hepatitis in C57BL/6 mice (Perlman et al., 1998). Infection of mice by MHV is an experimental model of chronic demyelinating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (Buchmeier et al., 1999). Furthermore, some MHV strains can be considered as a model for studying acute and chronic hepatitis of viral etiology (Ding et al., 1997). It is well established that the severity of MHV-induced hepatitis is dependent on virus strain. MHV-A59 induces moderate to severe hepatitis, whereas MHV-4 (an isolate of MHV-JHM strain) produces none to minimal hepatitis. MHV-2 is a highly hepatotropic strain that causes severe hepatitis. However, the viral determinants which explain the differences in pathogenicity are poorly understood.