The Swedish TBE variant can cause very severe disease –

By comparing closely related TBE viruses, the Umeå researchers have identified a type of virus that causes unusually severe disease in mouse experiments.

The virus strain studied had two unusual changes in its surface protein. The changes affect the ability of the virus to infect neurons, cause disease in mice, and also affect how well antibodies from the vaccines can fight the virus.

This finding may be a clue as to why some people who contract tuberculosis from tick bites get sicker than others. However, researchers don’t yet know how the type of virus affects people or how widespread it is.

The disease is difficult to study

A problem with the research on TBE is that when patients seek care for neurological problems caused by the virus, the consequences have developed to such an extent that it is difficult to find the underlying virus in a patient.

– There is currently no other defense against tuberculosis than protecting oneself from ticks and making sure to get vaccinated, but hopefully the research will lead to a better understanding of how the virus enters the brain, and thus we will find therapeutic treatments for the infected person, says Ebba Rosendahl, a doctoral student at Umea University.

The immune system protects the brain

In a virology thesis, I examined not only the newly discovered variant, but also how the TBE virus interacts with the immune system.

Eba Rosendahl and colleagues mapped how the TBE virus infects the brain of mice with or without an early immune response. They could see that in cases where the brain’s immune system could not be activated, completely different parts of the brain were infected, such as the cells that produce cerebrospinal fluid and the brain’s immune cells, microglia. This shows how important the immune system is to those with TBE and provides clues about how it can help the body fight infection.

You want to deceive the virus

“It’s about basic research, but it presents a small piece of the puzzle so that in the long term we can beat this pesky virus and possibly create better treatments for people who aren’t lucky enough to be infected,” says Ebba Rosendahl.

Read also: Why are there ticks?

thesis:

Pathogen-host interactions in tick-borne flavivirus infection; Etiology, Tropicalism and InstrumentationUmeå University.

communication:

Ebba Roosendaal
[email protected]