- (ANI) -- Scientists at Washington University School
of Medicine, St Louis, have discovered a close relative of a common little-understood
human virus that causes an estimated 23 million episodes of intestinal
illness, 50,000 hospitalizations and 300 deaths each year.
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- The discovery of the new virus, known as murine norovirus
1 (MNV-1), may lead to a better understanding of its disease-causing cousins
known as Norwalk viruses, or human noroviruses (HNVs). HNVs cause 90 percent
of epidemic viral gastroenteritis worldwide, including those that sweep
through cruise ships, nursing homes and military encampments causing debilitating
diarrhoea and vomiting.
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- "We know very little about human noroviruses because
they cannot be grown in the lab or in animals. This new mouse virus will
for the first time allow us to study this important class of human pathogens",
said study leader Herbert W Virgin IV, professor of pathology and immunology
and associate professor of molecular microbiology.
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- Virgin and colleagues discovered the virus in a strain
of immune-deficient mice that were being reared for use in other research.
When five of six mice died in one cage, the researchers decided to investigate.
They took tissue from the dead mice and filtered and injected it into healthy
mice, some of which had normal immunity and some of which were immune-deficient.
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- The mice with normal immunity remained healthy; the immune-deficient
mice died. This indicated an infectious agent was present that healthy
mice could resist but that killed immune-deficient mice. Further analysis
identified the previously unknown norovirus. (ANI)
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