"Ecce, homo adenovirus!" Newer views of an older human viral pathogen.
Donald Seto, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University. Manassas, VA
Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) have been studied since their simultaneous first isolation as respiratory pathogens in 1953 by two research groups. Alongside the
contemporaneous development of methods, tools, and technology, HAdVs have revealed insights into molecular biology; cell biology; and immunology. With genome sequencing, HAdVs are typed and characterized with less ambiguity, and provide insights into their
deep origins as well as the molecular evolution events leading to recent novel pathogen emergence. HAdV-E4, one of the 1953 isolates, is a recombinant that contains the epsilon epitope of HAdV-B16 embedded within the genome chassis of a chimpanzee AdV (SAdV-E27).
Respiratory pathogen "21+16H16" or "21+16/16" (1968) is nearly identical to SAdVs characterized from a chimpanzee and a bonobo (SAdV-B35). The genome contains a penton-hexon region from HAdV-B21, an E3 region from SAdV-B27 (gorilla), and a partial fiber region
from HAdV-B16, all contained within the chassis of SAdV-B21 (chimpanzee). It is renamed H-SAdV-B35.3 to reflect this rich, multidirectional, reciprocal, zoonotic history with coinfections in four human and nonhuman simian hosts, as well as its isolation from
three hosts.
Many thanks to Dr. Eliot Wirshbo (UC San Diego) for clarifying the latin.
Thank you all and we hope
to see you there!
Best,
Linda D. Chilin
Administrative Assistant
