It has been shown that the change in EBO virulence
during adaptation to guinea pig model is linked to
substitutions in the gene encoding VP24 protein [36]. It
appears that the changes in biological properties of the
mutated virus manifest themselves not only in guinea
pigs, to which the virus was adapted, but also in
monkeys.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to L.S. Sizikova and I.P. Efimova for
excellent technical assistance and performing the viral
assays in this study. We also thank G.B Chirikova for
help in preparing the manuscript. This work was supported
by grants 93-04-6712 and 96-04-49967 from the
Russian Foundation of Basic Research