Immunogenetics, resistance, and susceptibility to theiler's virus infection

Abstract

The genetic basis for differential susceptibility to Theiler's virus-induced demyelinating disease is complex and often confusing, similar to the situation seen in analyzing the genetic risk for human multiple sclerosis. Numerous genetic loci have been identified as influencing the likelihood of disease development, most prominently among them the class I H2-D locus which has the single most important effect of any of the loci studied thus far. Genetic analysis is complicated, however, by the fact that susceptibility to the disease is not inherited as a consistently dominant or recessive trait, and that the relevant loci can differ from one mouse strain to another. The system has proved amenable to the utilization of numerous transgenic and knock-out gene systems to analyze the disease process.