Virus interference is a phenomenon in which two viruses interact within a host, affecting the outcome of infection of at least one of such viruses. The effect of this event was first observed in the XVIII century and it was first recorded even before virology was recognized as a distinct science from microbiology. Studies on virus interference were mostly done in the decades between 1930 and 1960 in viruses infecting bacteria and different vertebrates. The systems included in vivo experiments and later, more refined assays were done using tissue and cell cultures. Many viruses involved in interference are pathogenic to humans or to economically important animals. Thus the phenomenon may be relevant to medicine and to animal production due to the possibility to use it as alternative to chemical therapies against virus infections to reduce the severity of disease/mortality caused by a superinfecting virus. Virus interference is defined as the host resistance to a superinfection caused by a pathogenic virus causing obvious signs of disease and/or mortality due to the action of an interfering virus abrogating the replication of the former virus. Different degrees of inhibition of the superinfecting virus can occur. Due to the emergence of novel pathogenic viruses in recent years, virus interference has recently been revisited using different pathogens and hosts, including commercially important farmed aquatic species. Here, some highly pathogenic viruses affecting farmed crustaceans can be affected by interference with other viruses. This review presents data on the history of virus interference in hosts including bacteria and animals, with emphasis on the known cases of virus interference in crustacean hosts.

Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs)

Escherichia coli [(Migula 1895) Castellani & Chalmers 1919]

Aedes albopictus (Skuse 1894)

Liocarcinus depurator (Linnaeus 1758): urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:107387

Penaeus duorarum (Burkenroad 1939): urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:158334

Carcinus maenas (Linnaeus 1758): urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:107381

Macrobrachium rosenbergii (De Man 1879): urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:220137

Penaeus vannamei (Boone 1931): urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C30A0A50-E309-4E24-851D-01CF94D97F23

Penaeus monodon (Fabricius 1798): urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:3DD50D8B-01C2-48A7-B80D-9D9DD2E6F7AD

Penaeus stylirostris (Stimpson 1874): urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:584982