FROM MOUSE TO SEQUENCE AND BACK TO MOUSE - PEREGRINATIONS OF AN ARBOVIROLOGIST

When the albino (laboratory) mouse was found to be useful for the prod uction of high titering reagents, improvements in diagnostic methods s oon followed. DalIdorf, Bugher, Casals, Lennette, Koprowski, Theiler, and Webster each made contributions that were central to the generatio n of assays allowing much more precise measurements of virus than had been possible. With the discovery of hemagglutination by Hirst and its application to both hemagglutination-inhibition tests for antibody to viruses and the study of virus-cell attachment mechanisms, a relative ly simple and inexpensive tool became available. Subsequent efforts by Sabin and Buescher and by Clarke and Casals applied this method as we ll as complement-fixation and neutralization to epidemiological and la boratory studies of arboviruses and arboviral diseases. Worldwide stud ies of arboviruses, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation? led to th e discovery of newly recognized viruses and their geographic distribut ions. Later, electron microscopic studies by Holmes and Murphy corrobo rated the antigenic studies of Casals, Shope, and others and the casca de of information regarding the molecular characteristics and genomic sequences of viruses subsequently provided powerful other analytical t ools. In 1993 a previously unrecognized hantavirus, Sin Nombre virus, was shown to be the etiologic agent of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome i n the U.S., and various techniques were used to determine the epidemio logy and natural history of this virus. Longitudinal studies of hantav iruses in the southwestern U.S. are yielding information useful for un derstanding the fundamentals of transseasonal transmission, epizoology , epidemiology, evolution, epidemic potential, prevention, and control of hantaviruses, here and elsewhere. Mice of various species, sizes, shapes, and colors have been central, if involuntary, participants in these hantavirus studies and advances. We have, in a way, come full ci rcle.