Chapter 3 – Mousepox

Publisher Summary Mousepox has been used as a model for research in several fields, notably the pathogenesis of generalized infections, experimental epidemiology, and the cellular immune response. The mousepox model is the best mouse model available for studying development of prophylactics and therapeutics against smallpox, as it provides a much greater dynamic range for evaluating antivirals and vaccines and shares a number of important similarities with smallpox. Also, studies with ectromelia have suggested methods for generating more virulent orthopox viruses that could be possibly used as bio weapons. Three distinct species of poxviruses produce natural infectionsof rodents: infectious ectromelia or mousepox virus, cowpox virus, and turkmenia rodent virus that is a close relative of cowpox virus. All the three poxviruses are orthopoxviruses with strong serological cross-reactivity to other orthopoxviruses.