Model virus family attracts international attention

Media Release

13 April 2012

AN EXPERT UQ plant virologist has distinguished himself by co-editing and contributing chapters to an authoritative new reference work, detailing one of the world’s most hotly studied virus families.

Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) Principal Research Fellow Dr Ralf Dietzgen and an American colleague from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were asked by a British publishing company to map the diverse lifestyles of rhabdoviruses – a family of single stranded, negative sense RNA viruses that can successfully utilise a myriad of ecological niches, ranging from plants and insects, to fish and mammals.

This rhabdovirus family includes pathogens such as rabies virus, vesicular stomatitis virus and potato yellow dwarf virus that are of tremendous public health, veterinary, and agricultural significance.

Due to the relative simplicity of their genomes and morphology, in recent years, rhabdoviruses have become powerful model systems for studying molecular virology.

Written by a select group of world-renowned virologists, the book reviews all of the most recent advances in rhabdovirology, providing a timely overview of the field.

Most contributions are written from a molecular and genomic perspective and contain expert insights upon which to base future research efforts.

Topics covered include: morphology, genome organization, transcription, virus replication, taxonomy, virus evolution, vesiculoviruses, lyssaviruses, ephemeroviruses, fish novirhabdoviruses, the sigma viruses of Drosophila (fruit fly), virus-host protein interaction of plant-adapted rhabdoviruses, cereal-infecting rhabdoviruses, and rabies prevention and control including lyssavirus vaccine development.

The $300 book is likely to become a 'must read' for all virologists working on these and related negative sense RNA viruses, and become an essential text for all biology, veterinary and medical science libraries.

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