Public versus personal serotypes of a viral quasispecies.

ABSTRACT: Noncytopathic RNA viruses persist in their natural hosts at various levels as highly mutating quasispecies. They exhibit only one known serotype. In most inbred DBA2 mice infected with 2 x 10(4) or 2 x 10(6) plaque-forming units (pfu) of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), the virus is transiently controlled below detectable levels measured with conventional assays (<1.7 pfu), but reemerges despite a common neutralizing Ab (nAb) response. Wild-type virus and cloned mutant viruses that had escaped polyclonal nAb responses in vivo induced nAb titers in new hosts that were usually cross-reactive; some sera were highly specific for certain mutants. The few mice that controlled LCMV infection for >170 days produced not only nAb against wild-type but also variably against many other mutan

SUBMITTER: Hunziker L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC156318 | biostudies-literature | 2003 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature