WASHINGTON, DC - Scientists reported three new animal models that could provide relatively cheap and convenient means for testing drugs and vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the disease that broke out in southern China last spring
these are not the first animal models for SARS. that honor goes to a monkey. At the height of the SARS crisis last April, virologist Ab Osterhaus and colleagues at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, cynomolgus monkeys inoculated with a newly discovered coronavirus. The monkeys have developed a lung infection resembling SARS in humans, providing evidence that the new virus was indeed the culprit, and the first animal model. In Rotterdam and elsewhere, researchers are studying SARS pathogenesis and to test drug candidates in infected monkeys
But the use of monkeys raises ethical questions. Moreover, they are heavy and expensive to experiment animals, especially under strict biocontainment standards. At a meeting here last week, organized by the Institute of Medicine Board on Global Health, Kanta Subbarao of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said she sprayed the SARS virus in the nose of mice and found that, although the animals didn 't get sick, the virus began to replicate inside their bodies - sufficient for an animal model. "Everyone calls us to test their pet vaccine," said Subbarao, who presented the results for publication.
In an article that has been accepted by Nature , meanwhile, Osterhaus says that his group has infected two other species of SARS and found that the virus is easily reply within two . Osterhaus declined to reveal the two species pending the release, but said they are more closely related to palm civets masked Melogale - two species in which the SARS virus was found in China ( Science NOW, May 23) - than they are to mice. The results suggest that the virus may have a remarkably wide host range, says Osterhaus.
The announcement of Subbarao was one of the few concrete measures before reported during the meeting last week. With drugs and vaccine studies in childhood and flu and cold season about to hit the northern hemisphere, many wondered if the overstretched public health systems will be able to cope if SARS reappears. Summing up his feelings after the meeting, National Center for Infectious Diseases director James Hughes said: "What I have heard does not make me sleep better"
Related Sites
. paper the Lancet describing the SARS model in macaques (free registration required)
Ab Osterhaus laboratory
more on SARS
0 Komentar