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.