The leader polypeptide of Theiler's virus is essential for neurovirulence in mice but not for viral growth in vitro.
Leader deletion selectively attenuates neurovirulence without impairing in vitro growth; leaves open relevance to human CNS infections or vaccine design.
A leader polypeptide of unknown function is encoded by cardioviruses, such as Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus. Although the deletion of this polypeptide has little effect on the growth of parental GDVII virus in baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells, the mutant virus is completely attenuated and fails to kill mice receiving intracerebral inoculations of high doses of the virus.
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Calenoff et al. (1995) studied this question.
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