Drexel University College of Medicine

Microbiology and Immunology Graduate Program B.A., Biology, Concordia College, Moorhead, MN Email: alicia.marie.holmgren@drexel.edu Advisor: Dr. Glenn Rall

Thesis Research Summary:

Several viruses, including measles virus, are able to infect and cause disease in the central nervous system (CNS).  Often, the course of infection in the CNS is quite different from that which is found in the periphery.  For example, measles virus is cytolytic in the periphery, but infection of neurons, as in Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis, produces a nonlytic infection with negligible extracellular virus.  Another highly lytic virus, poliovirus, also develops into a nonlytic infection, lacking extracellular virus upon infection of neurons.  Neurons are often thought to be inert cells residing in an "immune-privileged" environment.  This lends to the assumption that these cells have no real defense against pathogens but instead rely on surrounding astrocytes and microglia for protection.  Indeed, the different CNS cell types may have differential responses to viral infection and perhaps even differential upregulation of anti-viral proteins that can affect the viral life cycle.  But it is the unique ability of neurons to repress the lytic viral life cycle that suggests these cells can combat viral infection by an unknown mechanism.  The goal of my project is to investigate the neuronal proteins that regulate measles virus life cycle and block release of extracellular viral particles.