Recent studies indicate that the interaction between rabies virus (RV) phosphoprotein and the dynein light chain 8 (LC8) is essential for RV pathogenesis. Through its association with the dynein motor complex, LC8 has been suggested as a molecular factor that links the viral ribonucleoprotein to the host cell transport system. Recent structural investigations, however, dispute this model. To understand the role of LC8 in RV pathogenesis, we generated recombinant RVs with or without the LC8 binding domain (LC8-BD) deleted from the RV phosphoprotein. Peripheral infection of adult mice showed that removal of the LC8-BD did not inhibit entry into the CNS, although it prevented onset of RV-induced CNS disease. However, deletion of the LC8-BD significantly attenuated viral transcription and replication in the CNS. Studies in RAG2 knockout (KO) mice infected with the same recombinant RVs confirmed this finding and indicated that the adaptive immune system is not a factor in the attenuation of viral replication early in the infection. In cell culture, the deletion of the LC8-BD greatly attenuated growth on neuronal cells whereas the growth pattern on nonneuronal cells remained unchanged. However, deletion of the LC8-BD did not affect production of RV virions. We provide evidence that removal of the LC8-BD decreases primary transcription. In this study, we propose that LC8 does not play a role in the retrograde axonal transport of RV and that the deletion of the LC8-BD impairs the infectivity of the virions by reducing early transcription and replication in neurons.pathogenesis ͉ negative-strand RNA viruses ͉ rhabdovirus ͉ viral transport R abies virus (RV) is a member of the family Rhabdoviridae that infects the CNS. RV has a relatively simple genome that encodes the five structural proteins: nucleoprotein (N), phosphoprotein (P), matrix (M), glycoprotein (G), and RNA polymerase (L). Pathogenic RV infection without immediate postexposure prophylaxis frequently causes fatal encephalomyelitis in both humans and animals and has the distinction of having the highest case-fatality ratio among infectious pathogens (1). Past experiments in mice have suggested that street strains of RV initiate infection at the nerve terminals of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and then travel along the axons located in the spinal cord (2, 3). Consequently, this axonal transport leads to RV infection of the brain (4). Yet, the molecular basis for the transport of the RV particle remains unclear and controversial. Most transneuronal studies of the CNS in nonhuman primates (5, 6) and mice (7,8) reveal that fixed (laboratory-adapted) strains of RV spread exclusively in the retrograde direction; however, past in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that anterograde transport might also be involved (7, 9-11). The discovery that the dynein light chain, LC8 (DNLC1), interacts with the RV phosphoprotein (RVP) provides a putative molecular link between the virus and host cell transport system and, thus, a potential mechanism for the neuroinvasive prope...