Introduction

From AdenovirusWiki

Adenoviruses are viruses that apparently infect all vertebrates, and have been isolated from a wide and diverse set of hosts: fish, snakes, birds, mammals, etc.

Adenoviruses are a group of "medium-sized" naked viruses composed of a nucleocapsid and a double-stranded linear DNA genome. In humans and primates, their genomes are approximately 35-40kb.

Each individual strain or serotype (in humans) may have specific and separate tissue tropism, that is, may infect the membranes of the respiratory tract, the intestines, the eyes or the urinary tract.

Adenoviruses have been studied extensively since the first clinical isolation as "Respiratory viruses" in the early 1950s, and have been used as tools and model organisms for understanding eukaryotic molecular biology. For example, splicing was first observed in adenoviruses.

Adenoviruses play an important role in molecular biotechnology, being used as vectors for gene therapy and for DNA-based vaccines.