Interspecies transmission of simian foamy virus in a natural predator-prey system.
Simian foamy viruses (SFV) are ancient retroviruses of primates and have coevolved with their host species for as many as 30 million years. Although humans are not naturally infected with foamy virus, infection is occasionally acquired through interspecies transmission from nonhuman primates. We show that interspecies transmissions occur in a natural hunter-prey system, i.e., between wild chimpanzees and colobus monkeys, both of which harbor their own species-specific strains of SFV. Chimpanzees infected with chimpanzee SFV strains were shown to be coinfected with SFV from colobus monkeys, indicating that apes are susceptible to SFV superinfection, including highly divergent strains from other primate species.
Emerging Zoonoses, Robert Koch Institute, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany. LeendertzF@rki.de
Fabian H
FH
Leendertz
Florian
F
Zirkel
Emmanuel
E
Couacy-Hymann
Heinz
H
Ellerbrok
Vladimir A
VA
Morozov
Georg
G
Pauli
Claudia
C
Hedemann
Pierre
P
Formenty
Siv Aina
SA
Jensen
Christophe
C
Boesch
Sandra
S
Junglen
D000818:Animals; D003104:Colobus / Q000821:virology*; D007560:Cote d'Ivoire; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000821:virology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D012192:Retroviridae Infections / Q000635:transmission*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D053150:Simian foamy virus / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000502:physiology; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics
D014764:Viral Proteins