Murine adenoviruses: tools for studying adenovirus pathogenesis in a natural host.

Small laboratory animals are powerful models for investigating in vivo viral pathogenesis of a number of viruses. For adenoviruses (AdVs), however, species‐specificity poses limitations to studying human adenoviruses (HAdVs) in mice and other small laboratory animals. Thus, this review covers work on naturally occurring mouse AdVs, primarily mouse adenovirus type 1 (MAdV‐1), a member of the species Murine mastadenovirus A. Molecular genetics, virus life cycle, cell and tissue tropism, interactions with the host immune response, persistence, and host genetics of susceptibility are described. A brief discussion of MAdV‐2 (member of species Murine mastadenovirus B) and MAdV‐3 (member of species Murine mastadenovirus C) is included. We report the use of MAdVs in the development of vectors and vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]