Repost re: possible reservoir for Ebola/Marburg

[Anjeanette Roberts]

> But RNA????  I work with RNA every day and I cant imagine it being
> infectious.  RNAses are everywhere and I cant imagine a naked RNA molecule
> lasting long enough to be infectious...  Could you give me the Refs. for
those > things??
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Don
> Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
> University of Missouri-Columbia
> C601591 at showme.missouri.edu

Don,

   I believe your best bet for information on infectious viral RNAs would
be to look at work done in picornaviruses.  It has been known for several
years that
positive stranded RNA viruses can serve as mRNA when transfected into
cells. These + RNA genomes can be manipulated in cDNA clones, and then
transcribed RNA can be transfected back into cells. Recombinant,
infectious virus particles result.  These experiments are not possible
with negative stranded RNA viruses since their genomes can not serve as
mRNAs.

AJ
U Penn Microbiology
robertsa at cbil.humgen.upenn.edu