The article reviews the principal surviving examples of inscriptions on mosaic pavements and wall-paintings in Roman Britain. For some of these it makes tentative suggestions towards new readings or ...seeks to adjudicate between the conflicting readings of earlier commentators. The eleven inscriptions examined belong to different classes: signatures, dedications, good luck messages, labels, and literary or pseudo-literary glosses upon figure-scenes. The existence of the inscriptions implies that viewers were expected to be literate, or at least that being literate, if not actually well-educated, was socially important.
Subgroup A avian metapneumoviruses lacking either the SH or G gene or the M2-2 open reading frame were generated by using a reverse-genetics approach. The growth properties of these viruses were ...studied in vitro and in vivo in their natural host. Deletion of the SH gene alone resulted in the generation of a syncytial-plaque phenotype and this was reversed by the introduction of the SH gene from a subgroup B, but not a subgroup C, virus. Infected turkeys were assessed for antibody production and the presence of viral genomic RNA in tracheal swabs. The virus with a deleted SH gene also showed the greatest impairment of replication both in cell culture and in infected turkeys. This contrasts with the situation with other pneumoviruses in culture and in model animals, where deletion of the SH gene results in little effect upon viral yield and a good antibody response. Replication of the G- and M2-2-deleted viruses was impaired more severely in turkeys than in cell culture, with only some animals showing evidence of virus growth and antibody production. There was no correlation between virus replication and antibody response, suggesting that replication sites other than the trachea may be important for induction of antibody responses.
Y Wang, R Ling, JC Erker, H Zhang, H Li, S Desai, IK Mushahwar and TJ Harrison
Department of Medicine, Royal Free and University College Medical School of University College London, Royal Free ...Campus, UK.
Recent studies have reported and provided nucleotide sequence data from
divergent isolates of hepatitis E virus (HEV), including isolates from
North America and Africa. Sera were investigated from 29 Chinese patients
with a diagnosis of acute hepatitis and who were negative for hepatitis
viruses A-E by serology (HEV was excluded by testing for IgG antibody
only). To determine whether some patients were infected with HEV but had
yet to seroconvert to antibody positivity, RT-PCR was carried out with
primers designed within conserved sequences of the HEV open reading frame
(ORF) 1 and ORF2 regions. Fifteen patients were found to harbour sequences
related to HEV. Analysis of the HEV products revealed that nucleotide
sequences from nine of the sera closely matched Burmese-like HEV sequences
(more than 92% nucleotide identity across ORF1 and 88% in ORF2). The
remaining six HEV isolates were similar to each other but divergent from
all other known HEV sequences (74 to 83% nucleotide identity in ORF1 or
ORF2). Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the six divergent isolates
represent a fourth genotype of HEV, distinct from the previously described
Burmese, Mexican and United States variants (genotypes 1, 2 and 3). This
novel variant, referred to here as the Chinese genotype (genotype 4), may
be responsible for a significant proportion of cases of acute hepatitis in
China, as seen by the fact that 40% of the HEV-infected patients in this
study were genotype 4 positive.
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