Department of Biological Sciences faculty member, Dr. Jayasri Das Sarma, has recently published an exciting work with her student Dr. Kaushiki Biswas which appeared in the recent edition of Journal of Virology [Biswas K, Das Sarma J. (2014) Effect of microtubule disruption on neuronal spread and replication of demyelinating and nondemyelinating strains of mouse hepatitis virus in vitro. J Virol.  88(5):3043-7]. In this paper they show the involvement of microtubules in the transport of demyelinating but not non-demyelinating strains of coronavirus. The significance of the study is the observation that strains of virus that differ only in proteins important for attachment to host cells have profound differences in their ability to cause myelin destruction. This study explains why only some strains of neurotropic viruses cause demyelination. In addition to increasing our understanding of virus-induced demyelination and axonal loss, it identifies a potential therapeutic target in patients with the human demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis.commercial jumping castles to buy