Gammaherpesvirus Sequence Comparisons

In the December 1997 issue, a report by Desrosiers et al. (2) described a novel herpesvirus in rhesus macaques (named RRV for rhesus rhadinovirus) with similarity to human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8 or KSHV for Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus). In this article the authors listed various diseases that occur in macaques, including lymphomas and lymphoproliferative diseases, and speculated that “a causative role for RRV in these or other diseases would greatly facilitate studies of pathogenesis and vaccine and drug development.” Earlier the same year another report, by Rose et al. (4), described molecular sequences of two gammaherpesviruses in macaques associated with a proliferative disease in macaques called retroperitoneal fibromatosis (RF). This article also described the close genetic similarities between these new viruses (called RFHV for RF-associated herpesvirus) and HHV-8. HHV-8 is strongly implicated as a necessary cofactor in human Kaposi’s sarcoma (reference1 and references therein). Therefore, availability of a monkey model in which pathogenesis with related viruses can be studied could prove to be very valuable. It is important to properly describe the genetic and functional relationships between these gammaherpesviruses. A comparative analysis of the available sequences is presented here.