Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Evolution in Action: Why Some Viruses Jump Species
"Researchers studying strains of a lethal canine virus and a related human virus have determined why the canine virus was able to spread so quickly from cats to dogs, and then from sick dogs to healthy dogs. Their studies may lead to a new understanding of the critical molecular factors that permit viruses to jump from one species to another - information that could be helpful in assessing how much of a threat avian influenza is to humans.
In advance online publication of a paper in the April 2006 issue of the Journal of Virology, Laura Shackelton, an HHMI predoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford in England, examined the surprisingly rapid evolution of the B19 erythrovirus, a ubiquitous human parvovirus."
technorati tags: canine, virus, cats, dogs, species, evolution
Add to: CiteUlike | Connotea | Del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Newsvine | Reddit | Yahoo
