Passenger virus

Experimental demonstration of passenger status

Proving that a virus has no causative role can be difficult. Although none of the following signs is definitive, evidence that a virus found in diseased tissue might be passenger only rather than a causative agent includes:

• injection of the virus into healthy animals without causing disease;
• the absence of the virus at the earliest stages of the disease;
• curing the viral infection using antiviral drugs or vaccination with no effect on the course of the disease.

Examples

A well-established example is lactate dehydrogenase virus, which is often found in mouse tumours. GB virus C and Chandipura virus are possible examples in humans. It has also been suggested that a virus related to Alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 is a passenger virus that, unlike AHV1 itself, does not cause bovine malignant catarrhal fever. The discredited Duesberg hypothesis posits that HIV is a passenger virus in the etiology of AIDS.

References

References

1. Mongini PK, Rosenberg LT. (January 1976). "Inhibition of lymphocyte trapping by a passenger virus in murine ascitic tumors: characterization of lactic dehydrogenase virus (LDV) as the inhibitory component and analysis of the mechanism of inhibition". J. Exp. Med..
2. (June 1998). "HGV: the identification, biology and prevalence of an orphan virus". Liver.
3. Potharaju NR, Potharaju AK. (March 2006). "Is Chandipura virus an emerging human pathogen?". Arch. Dis. Child..
4. Metzler, Alfred E. (January 1991). "The malignant catarrhal fever complex". Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
5. Cohen, J.. (1994-12-09). "The Duesberg phenomenon". Science.
6. Duesberg P, Rasnick D. (1998). "The AIDS dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus". Genetica.