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Updated: Mar 29, 2026
In Vitro Analysis of Myd88-mediated Cellular Immune Response to West Nile Virus Mutant Strain Infection
Published on: November 27, 2014
Association between high expression macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) alleles and West Nile virus
Rituparna Das1, Kerry Loughran2, Charles Murchison2
1Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States; University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Abstract:
Infection with mosquito-borne West Nile virus (WNV) is usually asymptomatic but can lead to severe WNV encephalitis. The innate cytokine, macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), is elevated in patients with WNV encephalitis and promotes viral neuroinvasion and mortality in animal models. In a case-control study, we examined functional polymorphisms in the MIF locus in a cohort of 454 North American patients with neuroinvasive WNV disease and found patients homozygous for high-expression MIF alleles to be >20-fold (p=0.008) more likely to have WNV encephalitis. These data indicate that MIF is an important determinant of severity of WNV neuropathogenesis and may be a therapeutic target.
