Paramyxovirus sialidase

Purification of a variety of viral sialidases (influenza and paramyxovirus) after solubilization by proteases or detergents has been exten-... 

A number of pathogens also have sialidases to aid in pathogenesis or nutrition. Orthomyxoviruses (e.g. influenza) and paramyxoviruses (e.g. mumps, parainfluenza, Newcastle disease, Sendai) have sialidases on their surfaces. Surface sialidase activity is also exhibited by parasites such as Trypanosoma cruzi, T. brucei as well as a number of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria which may also secrete the enzyme. 

In the microbial world, occurrence of sialidase appears mostly to be restricted to ortho- and to paramyxoviruses and to members of two major taxonomic orders of bacteria, Eubacteriales and Pseudomona-dales (for review, Drzeniek, 1972), but not entirely. Sialidase also has been uncovered in one of the Mycoplasmatales (gallisepticum, Sethi and Muller, 1972 Roberts, 1967), as well as in a structurally related L-phase variant of Vibrio comma, or cholerae (Madoff et aL, 1961) this latter belongs, however, to the Spirillaceae family of the aforementioned Pseudomonadales. Sialidase has been found also in a higher Protistan, Trichomonas foetus (Romanovska and Watkins, 1963) and in several strains of a fungus, Streptomyces albus (Myhill and Cook, 1972), of the order Actinomycetales. Future discoveries may further widen the pat-... 

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