Measles-Virus Proteins in the Brain Tissue of Patients with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis

SUBACUTE sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a slowly progressing disease of the central nervous system of children and young adults, caused by a persistent measles-virus infection. Patients with SSPE have high levels of antibodies to measles virus in their serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and the virus has been isolated from the brain; however, isolation requires cocultivation of brain cells with other cultured cell lines.1 2 3 4 5 Measles virus contains six major proteins6 7 8 9: L and P, which are associated with the internal nucleoprotein (nucleocapsid) and are involved in the activity of RNA polymerase; NP, the nucleocapsid structural protein; H, the hemagglutinin, a . . .