Author
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Baxt, Barry |
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Submitted to: European Study Group of Picornavirus-Korpilampi-Finland
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 11/1/2006 Publication Date: 11/26/2006 Citation: Baxt, B. 2006. Picornavirus Molecular Pathology - Translating 50 Years of Molecular Biology to the Host. European Study Group of Picornavirus (EUROPIC) November 26, 2006. P. D1. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: In 1951 a resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, removed cancerous cells from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks and brought them to George Gey, the head of tissue culture research at Hopkins. Gey thought he could use these cells to study cancer in vitro. Eight months later Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer, and on the day of her death Gey announced the generation of a cell line, he called HeLa, that would aid in the fight against cancer. While Gey never realized that dream, he found that HeLa cells would grow poliovirus to very high titers, allowing the production of a vaccine and the study of virus replication. Thus, the era of picornavirus molecular biology began. In the last 55 years we have seen an enormous growth of knowledge of the mechanisms of picornaviruses infection and replication in cells in culture. While this large group of RNA viruses has similar genomic and capsid structure, they cause of a wide variety of disease syndromes in both humans and animals. This review will examine our current knowledge of how some of these viruses interact with their host species and cause disease. We will also examine the role of the viral structural and non-structural proteins, as well as the role of host proteins in viral pathogenesis. |
