title: Parvovirus Family Conundrum: What Makes a Killer?
abstract: Parvoviruses infect a wide variety of hosts, and their ancestors appear to have emerged tens to hundreds of millions of years ago and to have spread widely ever since. The diversity of parvoviruses is therefore extensive, and although they all appear to descend from a common ancestor and share common structures in their capsid and nonstructural proteins, there is often low homology at the DNA or protein level. The diversity of these viruses is also seen in the widely differing impacts they have on their hosts, which range from severe and even lethal disease to subclinical or nonpathogenic infections. In the past few years, deep sequencing of DNA samples from animals has shown just how widespread the parvoviruses are in nature, but most of the newly discovered viruses have not yet been associated with any disease. However, variants of some parvoviruses have altered their host ranges to create new epidemic or pandemic viruses. Here, we examine the properties of parvoviruses and their interactions with their hosts that are associated with these disparate pathogenic outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610.
authors.forename: Shweta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kailasan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610.
authors.forename: Mavis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Agbandje-McKenna
authors.affiliation: Baker Institute for Animal Health and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; email: crp3@cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Colin R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Parrish
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D058507:Host Specificity; D006801:Humans; D010322:Parvoviridae Infections / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology*; D017992:Parvovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny
keywords: Parvoviridae; autonomous; dependoparvovirus; pathogenicity