Different Rabies virus (RABV) strains have their own biological characteristics, but little is known about their respective impact on autophagy.In this study, attenuated RABV HEPFlury and wild-type RABV GD-SH-01 strains have been selected based on their very different biological characteristics.We found that GD-SH-01 infection significantly increases the number of autophagy-like vesicles, the accumulation of EGFP-LC3 fluorescence puncta and the conversion of LC3-Ⅰ to LC3-Ⅱ, while HEP-Flury is not able to induce this phenomenon.Next, we confirmed that GD-SH-01 infection triggered a complete autophagic response in human neuroblastoma cell line (SK), but inhibited autophagosome fusion with lysosomes in mouse neuroblastoma cell line (NA).Moreover, GD-SH-01 induces apoptosis and mitochondrial dysfunction while triggering autophagy, and apoptosis can be decreased by enhancing autophagy.And AMPK signaling pathway has been activated by GD-SH-01 in SK.In addition, five recombinant RABV were rescued based on the back-bone of HEP-Flury virus, whose genes were replaced respectively by the gene encoding single viral structure protein of the nucleoprotein (N),the phosphoprotein (P), the matrix protein (M), the glycoprotein (G), and the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L).We confirmed that rHEP-shM-infected cells triggered obviously LC3-Ⅰ/LC3-Ⅱ conversion, and minor autophagy showed in rHEP-shN, rHEP-shP, and rHEP-shG infected cells.We also verified that autophagy can not be induced by single structure protein of GD-SH-01.Therefore, our data provide strong evidence that autophagy is induced by GD-SH-01 and can decrease apoptosis in vitro.Furthermore, M of GD-SH-01 is not the only but a main protein for promoting RABV inducing autophagy.