title: 'Complementing' viral infection: mechanisms for evading innate immunity.
abstract: Through co-evolution with their hosts, viruses have developed a variety of immune escape and control mechanisms. In addition to strategies used to avoid the cellular and humoral immune responses, many viral families encode proteins capable of neutralizing the host's first line of defense, complement. The diversity of these complement avoidance mechanisms and proposed mechanisms by which viruses not only avoid, but also use the immune system to their advantage are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Tumor Virology, New England Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School, 1 Pine Hill Drive, Southborough, MA 01772, USA.
authors.forename: Sun-Hwa
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jae U
authors.initials: JU
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Means
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003167:Complement Activation / Q000276:immunology; D003165:Complement System Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000276:immunology*; D015163:Superinfection / Q000276:immunology; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000276:immunology*; D014780:Viruses / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000472:pathogenicity
chemical_list: D003165:Complement System Proteins