Structural abnormalities in neurons are sufficient to explain the clinical disease and fatal outcome of experimental rabies in yellow fluorescent protein-expressing transgenic mice

Under natural conditions and in some experimental models, rabies virus infection of the central nervous system causes relatively mild histopathological changes, without prominent evidence of neuronal death despite its lethality. In this study, the effects of rabies virus infection on the structure of neurons were investigated with experimentally infected transgenic mice expressing yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) in neuronal subpopulations. Six-week-old mice were inoculated in the hind-limb footpad with the CVS strain of fixed virus or were mock infected with vehicle (phosphate-buffered saline). Brain regions were subsequently examined by light, epifluorescent, and electron microscopy. In moribund CVS-infected mice, histopathological changes were minimal in paraffin-embedded tissue sections, although mild inflammatory changes were present. Terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling and caspase-3 immunostaining showed only a few apoptotic cells in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Silver staining demonstrated the preservation of cytoskeletal integrity in the cerebral cortex. However, fluorescence microscopy revealed marked beading and fragmentation of the dendrites and axons of layer V pyramidal neurons in the cerebral cortex, cerebellar mossy fibers, and axons in brainstem tracts. At an earlier time point, when mice displayed hind-limb paralysis, beading was observed in a few axons in the cerebellar commissure. Toluidine blue-stained resin-embedded sections from moribund YFP-expressing animals revealed vacuoles within the perikarya and proximal dendrites of pyramidal neurons in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. These vacuoles corresponded with swollen mitochondria under electron microscopy. Vacuolation was also observed ultrastructurally in axons and in presynaptic nerve endings. We conclude that the observed structural changes are sufficient to explain the severe clinical disease with a fatal outcome in this experimental model of rabies.