The phrase
"foamy virus" refers to a type of virus that is named after the way it looks under a microscope. It has a foamy appearance because of the bubbles or foam-like structures seen on its surface.
Full definition
Novel functions of
prototype foamy virus Gag glycine - arginine - rich boxes in reverse transcription and particle morphogenesis.
Yu - Ping Ho (Lindemann, TUD)-- «Characterization and Manipulation
of Foamy Virus Capsid - Cell Interactions» (2013)
The
simian foamy virus — so - called because of its foamy appearance under a microscope — is one of three known retroviruses in nonhuman primates.
Erik Muellers (Lindemann, TUD)-- «Prototype
foamy virus gag nuclear localization and glycine - arginine box functions revised» (2011)
«We think
foamy virus vectors will be safer than other vectors being used for this disease,» Kiem said.
That question answered, Saïb started working on
how foamy viruses move within cells to import their genome into the host cell's nucleus, which is what his adviser considers his most important work.
The researchers used Prototype
Foamy Virus integrase as a model and two molecular microscopy techniques to record viral integration complexes traveling along stretches of target DNA in search of insertion points.
Prototype
foamy virus protease activity is essential for intraparticle reverse transcription initiation but not absolutely required for uncoating upon host cell entry.
Early events
in foamy virus - host interaction and intracellular trafficking.
A convergence on the same date of origin
for foamy viruses provides evidence that the time - dependent rate phenomenon isn't just a relic of statistics or the methods researchers use to date species.
Although the
simian foamy virus (SFV) is not known to cause disease or to spread between humans, researchers say the virus is something to monitor closely; given enough time, it could evolve into something more dangerous — just like its two retrovirus cousins, one of which sparked the AIDS pandemic.
Researchers in labs around the world had slowly pushed back the date of origin
of foamy viruses to 100 million years ago.
The cooperative function of arginine residues in the Prototype
Foamy Virus Gag C - terminus mediates viral and cellular RNA encapsidation.
Foamy viruses, he found, come in two forms that interfere with each other.
Foamy viruses «are very important to understand in general how retroviruses behave» in host cells, Saïb says.
Hunting and butchering allow for high levels of direct contact of body fluids and are thought to have been important in emergence of Ebola, HIV - 1 and -2, Anthrax, Salmonellosis, Simian
foamy virus and other zoonotic diseases [67].
A foamy virus is a type of retrovirus capable of allowing its genetic information to become part of the genetic information of a host cell.
The use of
this foamy virus vector as a clinical vector for gene delivery was developed in Kiem's Clinical Research Division lab.
However, subsequent studies carried out on small numbers (20 — 30) of CFS patients, failed to confirm evidence for HTLV (type 1 or 11)[22]--[25] or other retroviruses, including the closely - related simian T lymphotropic virus type l, the prototype
foamy virus, simian retrovirus, bovine and feline leukaemia viruses [26] and HIV - 1 [23].