Journal of IiME Volume 3 Issue 1 Human Enteroviruses and Chronic Infectious Disease Steven Tracy1 and Nora M.Chapman2 Enterovirus Research Laboratory, Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 986495 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-6495, USA. 1, stracy@unmc.edu 2, nchapman@unmc.edu ABSTRACT Most of what is known about human enteroviruses (HEV) has been derived from the study of the polioviruses, the HEV responsible for poliomyelitis. The HEV are generally not thought to persist for long periods in the host: an acute, sometimes nasty, infection is rapidly eradicated by the host's serotypespecific adaptive immune response. Our discovery that the commonly encountered HEV, the group B coxsackieviruses (CVB), can naturally delete sequence from the 5' end of the RNA genome and that this deletional mechanism results in long-term viral persistence, in the face of the adaptive immune response, has substantially altered this view. This previously unknown and unsuspected aspect of enterovirus replication provides an explanation for previous reports of enteroviral RNA detected in diseased tissue in the apparent absence of infectious virus particles. Introduction The enteroviruses are an incredibly diverse and large genus in the family Picornaviridae. Within the enteroviruses, human enteroviruses (HEV; those which infect humans as opposed to other species) number at least 100 known serotypes, with more known to exist but which have just not been characterized to date. Serotype defines the virus: it is how the immune system recognizes the complex aggregation of proteins which makes up the virus particle or virion. Thus, infection with one HEV serotype induces immunity that protects against disease which that HEV serotype might inflict upon one were the virus is encountered again, but this protective immunity does not extend to other serotypes. This is why the poliovirus vaccines work to protect from poliomyelitis: any Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) Page 23/76 Professor Steven Tracy Ph.D. Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha NE 68198-6495; stracy@unmc.edu; 402-5597747 • Ph.D., 1979, Department of Biology, University of California, San Diego • Primary research interest: Molecular biology and pathogenesis of the group B coxsackieviruses since the early 1980s www.investinme.org
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