TY - GEN T1 - Interspecies transmission of simian foamy virus in a natural predator-prey system AU - Leendertz, Fabian AU - Zirkel, Florian AU - Couacy-Hymann, Emmanuel AU - Ellerbrok, Heinz AU - Morozov, Vladimir AU - Pauli, Georg AU - Hedemann, Claudia AU - Formenty, Pierre AU - Jensen, Siv Aina AU - Boesch, Christophe AU - Junglen, Sandra AB - 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. KW - Animals KW - DNA KW - Molecular Sequence Data KW - Phylogeny KW - Sequence Homology KW - Female KW - Male KW - Sequence Analysis KW - Viral Proteins/genetics KW - Retroviridae Infections/transmission KW - Pan troglodytes/virology KW - Colobus/virology KW - Cote d'Ivoire KW - Nucleic Acid KW - Simian foamy virus/isolation & purification KW - Simian foamy virus/physiology KW - 610 Medizin PY - 2008 LA - eng PB - Robert Koch-Institut, Infektionskrankheiten / Erreger VL - 82 IS - 15 DO - 0.1128/JVI.00549-08 ER -