The Friend legacy: from mouse to man.
The origins of retrovirology began in the primordial laboratories of Ellermann and Bang and of Rous in the first decade of the twentieth century. More than 40 frustrating years were to elapse before this early work with chickens was to lead to experiments with mice, made possible by the use of inbred strains and catalyzed by the observations of Dalldorf and of Gross that newborn animals were susceptible targets for pathogenesis by, respectively, Coxsackie viruses, and polyoma and retroviruses. Seminal observations by Charlotte Friend that retroviruses caused neoplasia in adult mice and her studies investigating the properties and pathogenesis of the Friend leukemia virus, as well as the role of the host immune response in development of disease, helped lay the groundwork of modern retrovirology. The use of retroviruses to study cell differentiation became the foundation on which many more recent discoveries rest. Above all, the information supplied by Friend and her colleagues and investigators in other laboratories finally enabled unequivocal isolation of the first human retroviruses long after most investigators had given up hope of finding such agents in man. Moreover, the techniques developed and the rapid characterization of these newly discovered human pathogens enabled the isolation of human immunodeficiency virus, the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. It is a challenge to current investigators to extend and expand upon the original work of Friend concerning the pathogenesis of retroviruses, as only a fuller understanding of the complex virus-host disease patterns induced by these viruses will ultimately lead to their control and prevention.
Rapp
F
F
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Pennsylvania State University, College of Medicine, Hershey 17033.
D005823:Genetics / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D012190:Retroviridae / Q000235:genetics; D014481:United States; D014773:Virology / Q000266:history