XMRV complete proviral genome, isolate S-162 now in Genbank
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis:
"This is either XMRV or a variant. If it is XMRV the diversity is too big to have come from the cell line they claim to be the origin, if it is a new variant, it is not in the cell line. So we have HGRVs."
3 comments:
Email correspondence with Dusty Miller:
"This Lithuanian sequence is not very close to XMRV, and really could not have originated from XMRV by spread in humans. It doesn't have the characteristic glycogag deletion of XMRV, and is only 96% identical to the 22Rv1 XMRV, with 69 sequence gaps (see attached alignment). It potentially could be a new human retrovirus, but it should not be called XMRV.
Take a look at the phylogenetic tree at the end of the attachment to see how the Lithuanian sequence (S-162 at bottom) is related to all other sequences in GenBank. It hangs out on its own, essentially no closer to the XMRV group (middle of tree) than to the DG-75 retrovirus group (near the top).
My guess is that this Lithuanian sequence is another mouse retrovirus sequence, but we'll need to wait for the paper describing the origin of this sequence to find out.
Cheers,
Dusty Miller"
Link to attachment
So Miller reckons that in his opinion it should not be called XMRV because it differs from the entity in the 22rv1 cell line, which could be called anything. He is in effect saying that a polytropic xenotropic hybrid MLV cannot be called a polytropic /xenotropic MLV because it has too much sequence variability and a lack of sequence variability would automatically mean that it was a contaminant.
If this was a lentivirus, which shows sequence variability from another lentivirus, and that couldn't be given the same name as the other lentivirus. We would end up with one lentvirus, with one particular nucleotide sequence that can be called HIV. Virology according to the strange world of Dusty Miller.
Can you please delete my previous Dusty Miller emsil comment. I didn't have permission to do so, and I feel that is was unethical that I did so.
Thanks.
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