Renegade Cellular Genetic Sequences in Stealth Adapted Viruses: Introducing a New Era of Virology

DNA sequence data have previously been obtained on an African green monkey simian cytomegalovirus (SCMV)-derived stealth adapted virus. The virus was repeatedly cultured from a patient with the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The data reveal not only genetic sequences that are derived from regions of the SCMV genome, but also the unexpected presence of genetic sequences that have originated from portions of the human cellular genome. The SCMV-derived stealth adapted virus has also acquired foreign genetic sequences of bacterial origin. The focus of this article is on the potential mechanism as well as the major biological and clinical ramifications of the primate to human and subsequent human to human viral transmission of genetically unstable renegade cellular genetic sequences. Insight into this topic has come from further analysis of rhesus monkey-derived cellular sequences in the stealth adapted viruses cultured from two other CFS patients and a mixture of both rhesus and human genome-derived cellular sequences in the virus cultured from another CFS patient. The virus acquired monkey cellular sequences are subject to ongoing mutations and can be replaced by human cellular sequences, probably by homologous recombination. There is a genetic basis for many human diseases, including cancers. The potential acquisition of pathogenic cellular sequences by stealth adapted viruses may, therefore, result in some of these genetic diseases becoming infectious. Stealth adapted viruses have been cultured from patients with a range of neurological and psychiatric illnesses, yet their existence is still not officially acknowledged by Public Health officials. The political reluctance to do so stems in part from the clearly implied origins of some stealth adapted viruses from the use of kidney cells from cytomegalovirus contaminated monkeys to produce live polio virus vaccines. It is imperative that the culturing and genetic analyses of stealth adapted viruses be pursued.