| Abstract |
Rhabdoviruses, together with the other members of the Rhabdoviridae family, are one of the most widely distributed groups of viruses in nature. Rhabdoviruses have been isolated from virtually all vertebrates, several different species of insects, as well as many plant (65). It is thought that insects were the original hosts for this group of viruses and that rhabdoviruses have since adapted to grow in both vertebrates and invertebrates. This adaptation undoubtedly contributed to one of the disdinguishing features of the prototypic rhabdovirus, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), namely the ability to replicate in most primary cell cultures and essentially all established mammalian cell lines, as well as a number of insect and amphibian cell lines. Because VSV has a broad host range, is relatively easy to grow and replicates to high titers in cell culture it has been used extensively as a model system to study many aspects of rhabdovirus entry (32, 69, 70), replication (3, 4) and assembly(36, 55, 58). |
