plant -> animals (re Ebola)

[K. Shannon]

Dr. Rybicki, 
Among all of the negative comments that appear on the net, I just wanted to 
tell you that I appreciate your comments on any subject.  Your name is one 
that I always read as you usually have written something knowledgeable. 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kevin Shannon,
kmshannon at uoknor.edu
shannon.kevin at oklahoma.va.gov
VAMC Microbiology Lab,
Oklahoma City, OK

"in situ  de viri vivescere "
"Viruses survive in nature."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ed Rybicki wrote:
> 
> > From:          mikep at biosci.uq.oz.au (Mike Poidinger)
> > Subject:       plant -> animals (re Ebola)
> 
> > On 25 Mar 1996 21:44:20 -0500, topherius at aol.com (Topherius) wrote:
> > >I heard that people here decided that the reservoir couldn't be a plant
> > >last year but I couldn't find anything in the archives.  Why couldn't it?
> >
> > Is anyone aware of any pathogen at all which is able to successfully
> > infect both plants and animals?
> > Mike
> 
> Nice to see a new sig, Mike...and yes, there are several: wound tumour
> virus (a reovirus), tomato spotted wilt virus (a bunyavirus) and
> lettuce necrotic yellows virus (a rhabdovirus) are just three that
> come to mind.  Of course, their hosts are insects and not vertebrates,
> but given the number of viruses which infect insects and vertebrates,
> (also reo-, bunya- and rhabdoviruses, tho different ones)
> it would not be too surprising to me to find one that could infect
> an insect host AND a plant AND a vertebrate or two.  After all, the
> Wisconsin crowd showed a while ago that an insect virus could
> replicate quite happily in a plant without moving efficiently (flock
> house virus, was it, a nodavirus?); we and others have shown (us with
> aphid lethal paralysis virus and rhopalosiphum padi virus, Richard
> Francki with leafhopper A virus) that a plant can act as a
> "non-propagative semi-persistent vector" for insect viruses.  So
> although not yet demonstrated, the idea is not TOO far-fetched.
> 
>                      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"

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