Recent study of Rabies virus

 Rabies virus infects to mammalian neuronal cells, whereas it does not destroy the cells. Nevertheless, Rabies virus causes a nervous disease to diverse mammals by disrupting the functions of neuronal cells.

 Rabies virus should escape from host immune defense for arriving at the central nervous system along peripheral nerves. Viral nucleoprotein (N) and phosphoprotein (P) play important roles in the avoidance from cellular immunity. N protein is considered to prevent viral RNA from recognizing by RIG-I that is an innate immune sensor which is essential for the interferon induction. In addition, it has been demonstrated that P protein contributes to the anti-immunity function by changing the phosphorylation and nuclear traffic of several factors in interferon signal cascade.

 There are few researchers who study Rabies virus, because Rabies is a preventable disease by an effective vaccine, which means that there are few budgets for Rabies virus research.