Primate betaherpesviruses

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Abstract
The last few years have witnessed significant expansion of the simian cytomegalovirus (CMV) model of human CMV (HCMV) infection. Progress in the utilization of the simian CMV models has been highlighted by a better understanding of natural history, development of species-specific reagents and techniques, sequencing of several viral genomes, and generation of a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) containing a full-length CMV genome. This work has demonstrated that, not only is there strong conservation of genomic organization and coding content, but also that the simian CMV exhibit significant parallels to HCMV in the course of viral infection in both immunocompetent hosts and those without a fully functional immune system. A wide range of experimental approaches into the molecular biology of HCMV, mechanisms of HCMV persistence and pathogenesis, and the design of novel treatment and prevention strategies are now possible in different non-human primate (NHP) models. Characterization of simian betaherpesviruses has been restricted almost exclusively to CMV. The single report that is consistent with the existence of human herpesvirus (HHV)-6/7-like viruses in non-human primates (NHP) is based on the amplification of a short DNA sequence with nucleic and amino acid homologies to DNA polymerase of HHV-6 and 7 (Lacoste et al., 2000). In contrast, CMV has been isolated from multiple genera and species of old and new world NHP. Each simian species probably harbors its own variant of CMV that has co-evolved with its host during primate evolution.

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