| First Author | Parker S | Year | 2017 |
| Journal | Viruses | Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 8 | PubMed ID | 28763036 |
| Mgi Jnum | J:286348 | Mgi Id | MGI:6403509 |
| Doi | 10.3390/v9080203 | Citation | Parker S, et al. (2017) Evaluation of Taterapox Virus in Small Animals. Viruses 9(8) |
| abstractText | Taterapox virus (TATV), which was isolated from an African gerbil (Tatera kempi) in 1975, is the most closely related virus to variola; however, only the original report has examined its virology. We have evaluated the tropism of TATV in vivo in small animals. We found that TATV does not infect Graphiurus kelleni, a species of African dormouse, but does induce seroconversion in the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) and in mice; however, in wild-type mice and gerbils, the virus produces an unapparent infection. Following intranasal and footpad inoculations with 1 x 10(6) plaque forming units (PFU) of TATV, immunocompromised stat1(-/-) mice showed signs of disease but did not die; however, SCID mice were susceptible to intranasal and footpad infections with 100% mortality observed by Day 35 and Day 54, respectively. We show that death is unlikely to be a result of the virus mutating to have increased virulence and that SCID mice are capable of transmitting TATV to C57BL/6 and C57BL/6 stat1(-/-) animals; however, transmission did not occur from TATV inoculated wild-type or stat1(-/-) mice. Comparisons with ectromelia (the etiological agent of mousepox) suggest that TATV behaves differently both at the site of inoculation and in the immune response that it triggers. |
