Experimental measles infection in rodents

: The sensitivity of newborn hamsters to inoculation with the vaccine L-16 strain of measles virus and the Lec strain isolated from a patient with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis as well as the possibility of persistence of these viruses in the animals were studied. Intracerebral inoculation of the L-15 strain was shown to produce in hamsters acute meningoencephalitis leading to death in 85%-100% of cases. Over 30 days after inoculation, the infectious virus, the virus-specific antigen and virus genome were found in the brain. In the brains of the sick animals, all the structural proteins of measles virus with the exception of hemagglutinin were expressed. After inoculation with the Lec strain, the clinical signs of the disease were less manifest, and mortality was 40%. The infectious virus could be detected in the brain up to 20 days postinoculation, the genome, up to 31 days. All the structural proteins of measles virus were expressed in the brains of the inoculated animals. No persistence of L-16 and Lec strains of measles virus could be demonstrated at langer intervals after inoculation (90-180 days) in the brains of hamsters.