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Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (292)	4/22/2003 10:09:25 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

You are welcome, Peter. >>Certainly you would expect mutations in a coronavirus because it is an RNA virus that doesn't have the "error-checking" that some other viruses have. Thus there are a lot of mutant HIV strains out there, whereas I don't think there are that many measles strains.<< does that mean this SARS vaccine would be just as hard as HIV vaccine to develop? although I still think we can just start from the coronavirus vaccine for cows and chickens<g>

To: Biomaven who wrote (292)	4/22/2003 10:13:09 PM
From: Torben Noerup Nielsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Peter, "Certainly you would expect mutations in a coronavirus because it is an RNA virus that doesn't have the "error-checking" that some other viruses have." DNA viruses that replicate using cellular DNA polymerase are subject to normal cellular DNA error correction mechanisms. Note that there are DNA viruses that do not use cellular DNA polymerase. All of the Poxviridae replicate have genomes that encode their own DNA polymerases. That is necessary since they replicate in the cytoplasm. For a good reference, see Fields Virology, Volume 2. It will be interesting to find out what the gene that is mutating actually encodes. If that is the cause of the varying virulence, SARS could be rapidly weaponized. Torben