Viruses as prey?

edregis at aol.com writes,
> 
> >I must have missed it, because I'm sure that someone in this
> >viruses-as-prey thread must have already pointed at hepatitis 
> >delta virus, adeno-associated virus, and some of the plant viroids.  
> >If not, then I just have.
> 
> No one's pointed this out till just now.  Can you expand on this somewhat?
>  This is still a notch too cryptic for me to figure out.  Which is prey
> for what, and V.V.? 

I was thinking about the Hep delta virus which requires Hep B virus for 
replication (HDV uses the HBV coat protein to surround its own nuvcleic 
acids) - in the presence of HDV HBV titres go down (though not to zero, 
and the liver damage is worse, so there's no therapeutic potential).  
Adeno-associated virus is similar in that it requires adenovirus (or I 
think a couple of other viruses) to replicate; I don't know for sure what 
happens to adenovirus in the presence of AAV but I presume its 
replication is impaired.  There are plant viroids that are similar 
although I've forgotten most of the tiny bit I knew about them.  

Perhaps these things are better described as "parasites" of the other 
viruses rather than "predators", but the distinction is semantic, I think.

I apologize for the terseness of these notes; I have to be out of town 
tomorrow and have several hundred things I needed to do yesterday.

Ian

-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-3921     Fax  (617)-632-2627


-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-3921     Fax  (617)-632-2627