Vaccination against respiratory syncytial virus: problems and progress.

The respiratory syncytial (RS) viruses belong to the pneumovirus genus of the paramyxoviridae [65]. The virus genome is a single strand of negative sense R N A which is transcribed into ten major species of messenger RNA, each of which encodes a viral protein. Three glycoproteins are associated with the surface of the virion and the infected cell the a t tachment protein, G, the fusion protein, F, and a small hydrophobic protein of unknown function, SH or 1A. Two proteins are associated with the membrane , M1 and M2 or 22K. The major nucleocapsid protein, N, is associated with a phosphoprotein, P, and the putative polymerase protein L. In addition there are two non-structural proteins of, as yet, unknown function [65].