Lower motor neuron degeneration associated with type C RNA virus infection in mice: neuropathological features.

Abstract

An unusually high prevalence of both spontaneous lymphoma and a progressive form of posterior paralysis has been found in a geographically isolated colony of wild mice in Ventura County, California. Subsequent study has revealed a striking positive correlation between the presence of both conditions and indigenous C-type RNA virus. Transmission experiments have indicated that the type C virus is apparently the etiologic agent of both the lymphoma and paralysis. The present study emphasizes the neuropathological and ultrastructural findings in wild mice with the spontaneously developing, and NIH Swiss mice with the experimentally transmitted, paralytic syndromes. Morphological features support the concept that this murine paralytic syndrome is due to the neurotropic effects of the C-type RNA virus and suggest that certain C-type virus strains of wild mouse origin may have the ability to produce slow neurological “degenerative”-type disease as well as neoplastic disease within the same susceptible host species.