- Hello, Jeff - I found this VERY interesting...dated July,
2002: research for vaccine regarding
- feline infectious peritonitis which is a feline coronavirus.
If the research was ongoing in Europe, it is quite possible that China
was also studying feline coronavirus.
-
- It appears that SARS first infected the medical community...and
then the public. I believe that SARS was caused by a lab accident.
-
- The Chinese are admitting that SARS agent might have
originated in civet cats, but have not gone as far as stating that the
agent got loose as part of research. Quite possibly these cats were used
in research. The research below uses mouse models.
-
- I, however, do not think that SARS agent jumped from
cat to man. I think it is possible that man infected cat. Although, at
this time, it would be premature for me to make emphatic statements regarding
either scenerio.
-
- If they experiment with coronaviruses in Europe, there
is no reason to doubt that China would be researching coronaviruses as
well.
-
- WHAT IS INFECTIOUS PERITONITIS?
-
- Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a disease caused
by a coronavirus infection. Many different strains of coronavirus are capable
of infecting cats, but most do not produce serious disease. FIP-producing
strains are distinguished by their ability to invade and grow in certain
white blood cells. The infected cells transport the virus throughout the
cat's body. An intense inflammatory reaction occurs in the tissues where
these virus-infected cells locate. It is this interaction between the body's
own immune system and the virus that is responsible for the disease.
-
- Infected cats shed coronavirus in their saliva and feces.
Most cats become infected by inhaling or ingesting the virus, either by
direct contact with an infected cat, or by contact with virus-contaminated
surfaces like clothing, bedding, feeding bowls, or toys.
-
- Although the virus can survive for a number of weeks
in the environment, it is rapidly inactivated by most household detergents
and disinfectants. An inexpensive and effective disinfectant is one part
of household bleach in thirty-two parts of water (4 ounces of bleach per
gallon of water).
-
- Patricia
-
- http://www.vet.uu.nl/english/research/programmes/microbiology/development
-
- Subprogramme 1
-
- The study of positive-stranded RNA viruses will focus
mainly on two lines. The virus assembly line will continue to work out
the details of the interactions between viral components, but will in addition
initiate studies on the 3-D structure of these components and on the manipulation
of the viral particles, particularly of the spike, with the aim of redesigning
the targeting function and developing coronaviruses into vectors for (tumor)
therapy. In the feline coronavirus line the main aims will be to generate
an infectious cDNA clone and to set up an RNA recombination system for
the convenient manipulation of the viral genome. These tools will open
a wealth of possibilities a.o. the study of viral virulence, the functions
of certain genes, and the development of a vaccine.
-
- Subprogramme 3
-
- The programme will continue to focus on the pathogenesis,
diagnosis and vaccine development in
- companion animal virus infections, particularly feline
infectious peritonitis. Efforts will be made to establish immune correlates
of protection against the fatal condition using e.g. CTL, lymphocyte stimulation,
ELISPOT assays and ELISAs to analyse cytokine expression by T-cells. New
vaccination challenge experiments using improved DNA vectors will be conducted.
A collaborative project with ID-DLO will start in 1999 that aims at the
development of an assay to specifically diagnose FIP-causing coronaviruses
against the background of the innocuous virus quasi-species. Studies on
the role of cytokines in pathogenesis and protection will be continued
in mouse models and in FIPV infection in cats, with support by VIRBAC (Carros,
France). In collaboration with INTERVET (Boxmeer, the Netherlands) studies
will be conducted on the early (non-specific) immune response on viral
infection using transgenic mouse models. The zoonotic potential of toroviruses
will be assessed in collaboration with the National Institute for Public
Health and the Environment (RIVM, Bilthoven, the Netherlands) and the Biomedical
Primate Research Center (BPRC Rijswijk, the Netherlands).
-
- Subprogramme 4
-
- As stated before, a number of social and scientific developments
have influenced the direction in which this programme will develop in the
future. The search for virulence factors will be stopped and our efforts
will be concentrated on host-pathogen interactions. Studies on the possibility
to use glycosyl transferases from various bacteria for the production of
semi-synthetic vaccines will be continued, and more input will be given
in the study of intracellular bacteria and the cross-talk between these
bacteria and their host cells. It is expected that - apart from Cowdria
ruminantium - Lawsonia intracellularis, a pig pathogen, will soon be included
in our research programme. Development of new diagnostic tools and a further
change to more veterinary relevant projects are continued.
-
- (IF YOU REMEMBER, DR. ROBERT LEE DID MENTION FINDING
BACTERIA IN THE GENOME SEQUENCE OF THE SARS AGENT.)
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Dr. Robert E. Lee
- rboblee@mchsi.com
- 5-25-3
- If the civet cat coronavirus is a feline
infectious peritonitis virus, it is not like any feline infectious peritonitis
virus that is on PubMed Central database as none of these are very close
to SARS coronavirus.
- There are several studies that discuss the use of cats
as a "mixing vessel" to use to create hybrid coronaviruses so
to cross species lines with modified coronaviruses that come out of cat
and this might be what happened... but that would involve coinfection to
produce a hybrid human-attacking coronavirus out of a cat, i.e., there
would have had to likely be someone involved in doing that coinfection
with the intent of creating hybrid coronaviruses.
- Other studies exist, significantly, that show cats can
be infected by human coronaviruses naturally but humans cannot be infected
by cat coronaviruses unless there is some tinkering done in the lab to
the human aminopeptidase-N receptors (CD13 receptors).
- Therefore,
- (a) if it came out of civet cat, it is likely that the
civet cat was used as a "mixing vessel" by someone -- that means
it is a bio-engineered agent. I would suppose the likely suspect would
be a Chinese bioengineering project mistake.
- or
- (b) if the cat has a coronavirus almost exactly like
SARS coronavirus, then the cat caught it from human and we are back to
square one regarding origin.
- There are plenty of civet cats that live all over Asia
and even in Africa... if a wild civet cat from someplace-in-the-middle-of-nowhere
Tibet shows a SARS-like coronavirus, then I will consider that maybe
it is possible that the SARS agent came from a civet cat -- but if that
is so, then someone is going to have to do a lot of explaining about how
a civet cat coronavirus that is so easily transmitted to humans and kills
people with at least an 8% mortality has not killed humans before now.
- I suspect that once it dawns on the researchers that
humans cannot be naturally be infected by cat coronaviruses (because the
aminopeptidase-N receptors of humans do not allow that infection) and they
then find that in order for that to happen it would have been a bio-engineering
project for someone, then they will fall back on the "cats can be
infected by human coronaviruses and this is probably the case in the civet
cat, i.e., the civet cat caught somebody's SARS coronavirus, and we're
sorry we confused the situation with the idea that civet cats infected
humans and we'll just have to keep on looking for another animal"
conclusion because cats can naturally catch human coronaviruses, e.g.,
HuCov-229E.
- The short story here is, and I'll wager a dollar, that
eventually the civet cat will be claimed to have been infected by a human
with SARS coronavirus (and then there will not be the sticky-wicket of
a bioengineering project mistake).
- My 2 cents... :-)
- Bob Lee
- Some references of interest below:
- Adv Exp Med Biol 1998;440:69-75 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=
- Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=9782266>Related
Articles, <javascript:PopUpMenu2_Set(Menu9782266,'','','','','');>Links
-
-
- Feline aminopeptidase N is a receptor for all group I
coronaviruses.
-
- Tresnan DB, Holmes KV.
-
- Department of Microbiology, University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center, Denver 80262, USA.
-
- Human coronavirus HCV-229E and porcine transmissible
gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), both members of coronavirus group I, use
aminopeptidase N (APN) as their cellular receptors. These viruses show
marked species specificity in receptor utilization as they can only use
APN of their respective species to initiate virus infection. Feline and
canine coronaviruses are also group I coronaviruses. To determine whether
feline APN could serve as a receptor for feline coronaviruses (FCoVs),
we cloned the cDNA encoding feline APN (fAPN) by PCR from feline cells
and stably expressed it in FCoV-resistant mouse or hamster cells. These
became susceptible to infection with either of several biotypes of FCoVs.
The expression of recombinant fAPN also made hamster and mouse cells susceptible
to infection with other group I coronaviruses, including several canine
coronavirus strains, transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), and human
coronavirus HCV-229E. Thus, fAPN served as a functional receptor for each
of these coronaviruses in group I. As expected, fAPN could not serve as
a receptor for mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), a group II coronavirus which
uses murine biliary glycoproteins as receptors. Thus, fAPN acts as a common
receptor for coronaviruses in group I, in marked contrast to human and
porcine APN glycoproteins which serve as receptors only for human and porcine
coronaviruses, respectively. These observations suggest that cats could
serve as a "mixing vessel" in which simultaneous infection with
several group I coronaviruses could lead to recombination of viral genomes.
-
- PMID: 9782266
- J Virol 1996 Dec;70(12):8669-74 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=
- Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=8970993>Related
Articles, <javascript:PopUpMenu2_Set(Menu8970993,'','','','','');>Links
-
- <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/utils/fref.fcgi?http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=reprint&pmid=8970993>
- Feline aminopeptidase N serves as a receptor for feline,
canine, porcine, and human coronaviruses in serogroup I.
-
- Tresnan DB, Levis R, Holmes KV.
-
- Department of Microbiology, University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center, Denver 80262, USA. Dina.Tresnan@UCHSC.edu
-
- Two members of coronavirus serogroup I, human respiratory
coronavirus HCV-229E and porcine transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV),
use aminopeptidase N (APN) as their cellular receptors. These viruses show
marked species specificity in receptor utilization, as HCV-229E can utilize
human but not porcine APN, while TGEV can utilize porcine but not human
APN. To determine whether feline APN could serve as a receptor for two
feline coronaviruses in serogroup I, feline infectious peritonitis virus
(FIPV) and feline enteric coronavirus (FeCV), we cloned the cDNA encoding
feline APN (fAPN) by PCR from cDNA isolated from a feline cell line and
stably expressed it in FIPV- and FeCV-resistant mouse and hamster cells.
The predicted amino acid sequence of fAPN shows 78 and 77% identity with
human and porcine APN, respectively. When inoculated with either of two
biologically different strains of FIPV or with FeCV, fAPN-transfected mouse
and hamster cells became infected and viral antigens developed in the cytoplasm.
Infectious FIPV was released from hamster cells stably transfected with
fAPN. The fAPN-transfected mouse and hamster cells were challenged with
other coronaviruses in serogroup I including canine coronavirus, porcine
coronavirus TGEV, and human coronavirus HCV-229E. In addition to serving
as a receptor for the feline coronaviruses, fAPN also served as a functional
receptor for each of these serogroup I coronaviruses as shown by development
of viral antigens in the cytoplasm of infected mouse or hamster cells stably
transfected with fAPN. In contrast, fAPN did not serve as a functional
receptor for mouse hepatitis virus (MHV-A59), which is in serogroup II
and utilizes mouse biliary glycoprotein receptors unrelated to APN. Thus,
fAPN serves as a receptor for a much broader range of group I coronaviruses
than human and porcine APNs. The human, porcine, and canine coronaviruses
in serogroup I that are able to use fAPN as a receptor have previously
been shown to infect cats without causing disease. Therefore, host factors
in addition to receptor specificity apparently affect the virulence and
transmissibility of nonfeline serogroup I coronaviruses in the cat.
-
- PMID: 8970993
- J Gen Virol 1998 Jun;79 ( Pt 6):1387-91 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=
- Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=9634079>Related
Articles, <javascript:PopUpMenu2_Set(Menu9634079,'','','','','');>Links
-
- <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/utils/fref.fcgi?http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/
- pmidlookup?view=reprint&pmid=9634079>
- Characterization of determinants involved in the feline
infectious peritonitis virus receptor function of feline aminopeptidase
N.
-
- Hegyi A, Kolb AF.
-
- Institute of Virology and Immunology, University of Wurzburg,
Germany.
-
- Feline aminopeptidase N (fAPN) is a major cell surface
receptor for feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV), transmissible
gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), human coronavirus 229E (HCV 229E) and canine
coronavirus (CCV). By using chimeric molecules assembled from porcine,
human and feline APN we have analysed the determinants involved in the
coronavirus receptor function of fAPN. Our results show that amino acids
670-840 of fAPN are critically involved in its FIPV and TGEV receptor function
whereas amino acids 135-297 are essential for the HCV 229E receptor function.
We also demonstrate that a chimeric molecule assembled from human and porcine
APN is able to act as a receptor for FIPV. This is surprising as neither
human nor porcine APN by themselves mediate FIPV infection. These results
suggest that different determinants in the APN protein are involved in
mediating the coronavirus receptor function.
-
- PMID: 9634079
|
