Chapter 5 Lyssaviruses—Current Trends

Various technological developments have revitalized the approaches employed to study the disease of rabies. In particular, reverse genetics has facilitated the generation of novel viruses used to improve our understanding of the fundamental aspects of rabies virus (RABV) biology and pathogenicity and yielded novel constructs potentially useful as vaccines against rabies and other diseases. Other techniques such as high throughput methods to examine the impact of rabies virus infection on host cell gene expression and two hybrid systems to explore detailed protein–protein interactions also contribute substantially to our understanding of virus–host interactions. This review summarizes much of the increased knowledge about rabies that has resulted from such studies but acknowledges that this is still insufficient to allow rational attempts at curing those who present with clinical disease.