Sendai Virus and a Unified Model of Mononegavirus RNA Synthesis

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the founding member of the mononegavirus order (Mononegavirales), was found to be a negative strand RNA virus in the 1960s, and since then the number of such viruses has continually increased with no end in sight. Sendai virus (SeV) was noted soon afterwards due to an outbreak of newborn pneumonitis in Japan whose putative agent was passed in mice, and nowadays this mouse virus is mainly the bane of animal houses and immunologists. However, SeV was important in the study of this class of viruses because, like flu, it grows to high titers in embryonated chicken eggs, facilitating the biochemical characterization of its infection and that of its nucleocapsid, which is very close to that of measles virus (MeV). This review and opinion piece follow SeV as more is known about how various mononegaviruses express their genetic information and carry out their RNA synthesis, and proposes a unified model based on what all MNV have in common.