Genetically Determined Resistance to Lethal Vesicular Stomatitis Virus in Syrian Hamsters

Abstract

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the prototype for the Rhabdovirus group of single-stranded RNA viruses, is indigenous to and pathogenic for cattle and horses. Under most conditions VSV is nonpathogenic for adult members of other mammalian species; if the virus is administered intracerebrally, however, death will usually follow; e.g., intracerebral injection of 25 plaque-forming units (PFU) of VSV will result in the death of an adult mouse within two days (1), whereas intraperitoneal (IP) or intravenous (IV) injection of as many as 10⁸ PFU of VSV is not lethal (2,3). In contrast, we have found that adult animals of certain inbred strains of Syrian hamsters are extremely susceptible to infections of VSV and succumb between 48 and 72 hours after IP injection of as few as 10 PFU per animal. We also found that one inbred strain is resistant to relatively high doses of VSV (10⁶ PFU), which implies that the susceptibility/resistance to lethal infections of VSV is genetically determined.