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Neurologic diseases are important complications of measles. The role of virus infection of the central nervous system as well as the route of virus entry has been unclear. Five autopsied cases of individuals who died with severe acute measles 3-10 d after the onset of the rash were studied for evidence of viral involvement of the central nervous system. In all cases, in situ hybridization and RT-PCR in situ hybridization techniques showed endothelial cell infection. Immunoperoxidase staining with an anti-ferritin antibody revealed a reactive microgliosis. These data suggest that endothelial cells in the brain are frequently infected during acute fatal measles. This site of infection may provide a portal of entry for virus in individuals who subsequently develop subacute sclerosing panencephalitis or measles inclusion body encephalitis and a target for immunologic reactions in post-measles encephalomyelitis.

Because both HIV-1 virions and HIV-infected cells are present in the semen and cervical mucus of infected individuals, HIV-1 prevention strategies must consider both cell-free and cell-associated virus. Antibodies that target HIV-1 virions have been shown to prevent vaginal transmission of cell-free virus in macaques, but since cell-associated transmission has not been reliably demonstrated in this model system, no strategies to prevent such transmission have been tested. We have employed a mouse model in which SCID mice carry human peripheral blood leukocytes (HuPBLs). In these mice, vaginal transmission of cell-associated, but not cell-free, HIV-1 transmission occurs, mediated by transepithelial migration of HIV-infected cells. Topical application of beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD), a cholesterol-sequestering agent that interferes with cell migration and budding of virus from lipid rafts, blocks transmission of cell-associated HIV-1. The HuPBL-SCID model of vaginal HIV-1 transmission should prove useful for investigating cell-associated HIV-1 transmucosal HIV-1 transmission, as well as for screening reagents for their potential efficacy in preventing sexual HIV-1 transmission.