Early Permissiveness of Central Nervous System Cells to Measles Virus Infection Is Determined by Hyperfusogenicity and Interferon Pressure

The cessation of measles virus (MeV) vaccination in more than 40 countries as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to significantly increase deaths due to measles. MeV can infect the central nervous system (CNS) and lead to lethal encephalitis. Substantial part of virus sequences recovered from patients’ brain were mutated in the matrix and/or the fusion protein (F). Mutations of the heptad repeat domain located in the C terminal (HRC) part of the F protein were often observed and were associated to hyperfusogenicity. These mutations promote brain invasion as a hallmark of neuroadaptation. Wild-type F allows entry into the brain, followed by limited spreading compared with the massive invasion observed for hyperfusogenic MeV. Taking advantage of our ex vivo models of hamster organotypic brain cultures, we investigated how the hyperfusogenic mutations in the F HRC domain modulate virus distribution in CNS cells. In this study, we also identified the dependence of neural cells susceptibility on both their activation state and destabilization of the virus F protein. Type I interferon (IFN-I) impaired mainly astrocytes and microglial cells permissiveness contrarily to neurons, opening a new way of consideration on the development of treatments against viral encephalitis.