Repost re: possible reservoir for Ebola/Marb

[C. Maples]

On 15 May 1995, ncel wrote:

> > RNA is after all extremely unstable (if you ever
> > had to isolate it you know as well). I would say that beside artificial
> > conditions in laboratory, in the natural infectivity process, the viral
> > envelope is ABSOLUTELY required for a virus to be infective.
>  
> True for most viruses. But have you ever heard of viroids? They have NO 
> capsids, consist only of circular, small, single-stranded RNAs of about 
> 245-420 nucleotides, yet are quite capable of autonomous replication in 
> susceptible plant cells and cause important crop diseases. Most viroids 

> As you correctly state, RNA appears to be unstable in the lab, but this is
> only because of the ubiquitous presence of RNases on fingers, etc. that 
> break down the RNAs.   

These same RNAses are present in the environment as well as the lab.  The 
'stable RNA's' are stable because of their structure which differs from 
that of messenger RNA (for the most part).  Messenger RNA's are typically 
what interests a lab, and these are the unstable RNA's.
-Charles