Production of an animal model for the study of diseases causing demyelination of the CNS

• Grant number: 13/09999-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - General Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Marcus Alexandre Finzi Corat
• Grantee: Júlia Patire Rosolen
• Host Institution: Centro Multidisciplinar para Investigação Biológica (CEMIB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus is a natural, enteric infection of mice. Its life cycle is very similar to that of poliovirus, so, this is widely used as a model for nervous central system demyelination diseases. Several infectious demyelinating diseases are not well studied and, thus, their mechanisms of action are not fully understood. Many of them don't have an effective treatment and it probably occurs due to the difficulty of conducting studies, both for the understanding as for the treatment of these diseases, because of interventions and environmental controls, and limited experiments. Nowadays, animal laboratory models existent in this research line are mainly focused on the study of viral behavior in the body. There are few studies focused on the treatment of sequelae because of the delay in obtaining the animal's chronic sequelae, apart from the difficulty of successfully treating these sequelae. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an animal model with quick obtaining, feasible for studies of the process of demyelination and disease progression, as well as allows ways to treat their chronic sequelae. In this study, we intend to develop an animal model to help us to understand better and refine treatments of chronic sequelae. Therefore, we will compare the model created to successful results obtained by our group with treatment through stem cell therapy in dogs suffering from distemper. (AU)