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Molecular biology of foamy viruses

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Abstract

One of the most fascinating areas in retrovirology is the study of foamy viruses (FVs), because these viruses appear to do everything that is common to all other retroviruses differently. FVs have found a completely new way to propagate their genome. And they do this extremely successfully because most of wild non-human primates, felines, bovines, equines, and small ruminants are likely to be non-pathogenically infected. The success of FVs can also be viewed from a different angle, since they replicate very conservatively and do not need to shape their genotypic and phenotypic makeup every now and then. The elucidation of the underlying basic mechanisms of the FV replication strategy is the topic of this review.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Dirk Lindemann (Dresden, Germany) and Jochen Bodem (Würzburg, Germany) for critical comments on the manuscript and the DFG for financial support. Work of the authors was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through Sonderforschungsbereich 479.

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  1. Institut für Virologie und Immunbiologie, University of Würzburg, Versbacher Str. 7, 97078, Würzburg, Germany

    Axel Rethwilm

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Correspondence to Axel Rethwilm.

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This article is published as part of the Special Issue on Pathogen Variation and Host Response in Infectious Disease.

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Rethwilm, A. Molecular biology of foamy viruses. Med Microbiol Immunol 199, 197–207 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00430-010-0158-x

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