Acid sphingomyelinase (ASM)-deficient mice are more susceptible to Sindbis virus-induced encephalomyelitis (Ng and Griffin, 2006; Ng et al., 2008), ceramides enhance the infection with Japanese encephalitis virus (Takamatsu et al., 2010), and CD8+ T cells of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV)-infected ASM-deficient mice secrete reduced levels of IFN-γ and cytotoxic granules resulting in delayed viral clearance (Herz et al., 2009). This evidence concerns the gene SMPD1 and encephalomyelitis.