Transmission and Species

[PANGELETTI at bmg.bhs.uab.edu]

Light post:
Is it possibly that monkeys (or other animals) can contract the
virus through airborne transmission, while humans can not?  In
other words, is there something about a monkey lung that differs
from ours in such a way as to allow easier transission?  

It seems to me there MUST be some difference if E. Zaire is
airborne for them and not us. 

-Lighty

Ah, OK. Well this is actually a very interesting question.  The problem 
is that it would be very hard to answer with out doing an experiment.  
The first Exp. would be to see whether cultured lung epithelia from each 
organism have different abilities to internalize the virus.  Some cells 
are amazingly refractory to virus.  Example: Ad12 is 1/3 as efficient at 
entry into hamster cells as it is in human cells.  The next thing to do 
is to test the ability of the virus to replicate in each of cell lines.  
Obviously, you can't do experimental infections on humans so you would 
have to work in vitro. There may very well be differences in monkey lung 
that effect transmission.  

Cheers.       
Peter C. Angeletti
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Adenovirus interactions with host cells
PAngeletti at BMG.BHS.UAB.EDU
or 
zm00016 at uabdpo.uab.dpo.edu