Both the vaccine and wild-type strains of measles can use SLAM / CD150 receptors. What exactly is responsible for loss of virulence of vaccine strain, if it has nothing to do with receptor usage? Any comments?
Lymphatic tissues are primary targets for all Morbilliviruses. It is CD150 or SLAM, which is the original receptor for Morbilliviruses including Measles virus. The vaccine strains attenuated on Vero cell lines tend to use CD47 while they apparently have not lost ability to use the original CD150 receptor. Then what could be the reason for loss of virulence?
Immune stimulation along with immune suppression by two different pathways are well known phenomena.