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Journal of Virology, August 2008, p. 7741-7744, Vol. 82, No. 15
0022-538X/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.00549-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Robert Koch Institute, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany,1 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany,2 Lanada/Lcpa, Bingerville, Côte d'Ivoire,3 Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland, 725 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201,4 Ebola Taï Forest Project, World Health Organization, WHO Office, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire,5 Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, P.O. Box 8146 dep., N-0033 Oslo, Norway6
Received 12 March 2008/ Accepted 16 May 2008
Simian foamy viruses (SFV) are ancient retroviruses of primates and have coevolved with their host species for as many as 30 million years. Although humans are not naturally infected with foamy virus, infection is occasionally acquired through interspecies transmission from nonhuman primates. We show that interspecies transmissions occur in a natural hunter-prey system, i.e., between wild chimpanzees and colobus monkeys, both of which harbor their own species-specific strains of SFV. Chimpanzees infected with chimpanzee SFV strains were shown to be coinfected with SFV from colobus monkeys, indicating that apes are susceptible to SFV superinfection, including highly divergent strains from other primate species.
Published ahead of print on 28 May 2008.
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