ebola transmission

[Ed Rybicki]

> To:            virology at net.bio.net
> From:          Yves Konigshofer <BG6S000 at MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>
> Subject:       ebola transmission

> Is it possible for a plant to use ebola as a defense?  If plants
> can produce toxins to ward off insects and other animals then could
> it be possible for plants to also use a virus?  After watching the
> last CNN Presents episode on ebola, they stated that the first case
> was a charcoal maker which would have exposed him to the sap of all
> sorts of different plants. 

And all the thingies that live on those plants: which, if my memory 
of central African rain forests is anything to go by, harbour the 
most PHENOMENAL number of 
insects/beetles/caterpillars/spiders/lizards/geckos...as well as all 
the thingies that live in the undergrowth, like MORE creepy crawlies 
as well as lizards, snakes, ticks, mosquitoes, horseflies/generic 
equivalent....you don't go having to invoke plant defenses when there 
are a myriad of more likely suspects.  Much as I like the idea...and 
I do know that certain folks with more than a passing interest in 
Ebola are willing to entertain the idea of it infecting plants  
seriously enough to actually test the idea.  But let them tell you 
about it.

 Could it be possible that the ebola
> virus contains genes with both mammalian and plant promoters?  The
> structure of ebola does look a bit like TMV, although it is not
> rigid and seems to bend...

Doesn't have to have any kind of promoter but a viral promoter - 
which, seeing as it is a negative-sense ssRNA virus, are only 
recognised by the viral polymerase, anyway.  And Ebola looks nothing 
like TMV: it is an ENVELOPED cylindrical and NOT rod-shaped virus, 
which can bend, unlike TMV virions (which break).  And are not 
enveloped.

> Since tropical plants and animals have come up with just about every
> possible defense mechanism, why don't they use a virus which takes
> out the attacking animal as well as that animal's associative group
> (pack, herd, ?).

Great for a discussion topic, but remains an "out there" hypothesis.  
Only to be explored when all the more reasonable ones run dry B-)

                     Ed Rybicki, PhD  
      Dept Microbiology     |  ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za   
   University of Cape Town  | phone: x27-21-650-3265
   Private Bag, Rondebosch  |  fax: x27-21-650 4023
      7700, South Africa    |   
    WWW URL: http://www.uct.ac.za/microbiology/ed.html      
                                        
"And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you"