Methods to Study West Nile Virus Infection and the Virus-Induced Inflammation in the Brain in a Murine Model.

West Nile virus (WNV), a mosquito-borne neurotropic flavivirus, has become the leading cause of vector-borne viral encephalitis in the United States for the past decades. The murine model of WNV infection is an effective in vivo experimental model to investigate WNV neuropathogenesis in humans. Here, we describe several laboratory protocols to study WNV infection and the virus-induced inflammation in the brain in both in vitro and in vivo murine models.