Emergence of a novel pathogenic poxvirus infection in the endangered green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) highlights a key threatening process
Sarker, Subir, Hannon, Christabel, Athukorala, Ajani, and Bielefeldt-Ohmann, Helle (2021) Emergence of a novel pathogenic poxvirus infection in the endangered green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) highlights a key threatening process. Viruses, 13 (2). 219.
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Abstract
Emerging viral disease is a significant concern, with potential consequences for human, animal and environmental health. Over the past several decades, multiple novel viruses have been found in wildlife species, including reptiles, and often pose a major threat to vulnerable species. However, whilst a large number of viruses have been described in turtles, information on poxvirus in cheloniids remains scarce, with no molecular sequence data available to date. This study characterizes, for the first time, a novel poxvirus, here tentatively designated cheloniid poxvirus 1 (ChePV-1). The affected cutaneous tissue, recovered from a green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) captured off the Central Queensland coast of Australia, underwent histological examination, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), DNA extraction and genomic sequencing. The novel ChePV-1 was shown to be significantly divergent from other known poxviruses and showed the highest sequence similarity (89.3%) to avipoxviruses (shearwater poxvirus 2 (SWPV2)). This suggests the novel ChePV-1 may have originated from a common ancestor that diverged from an avipoxvirus-like progenitor. The genome contained three predicted unique genes and a further 15 genes being truncated/fragmented compared to SWPV2. This is the first comprehensive study that demonstrates evidence of poxvirus infection in a marine turtle species, as well as a rare example of an avipoxvirus crossing the avian-host barrier. This finding warrants further investigations into poxvirus infections between species in close physical proximity, as well as in vitro and in vivo studies of pathogenesis and disease.
| Item ID: | 79822 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1999-4915 |
| Keywords: | Green sea turtle, Poxvirus, Skin lesions, Species conservation |
| Copyright Information: | © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Aug 2023 03:18 |
| FoR Codes: | 30 AGRICULTURAL, VETERINARY AND FOOD SCIENCES > 3009 Veterinary sciences > 300914 Veterinary virology @ 50% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3105 Genetics > 310509 Genomics @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280101 Expanding knowledge in the agricultural, food and veterinary sciences @ 50% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280103 Expanding knowledge in the biomedical and clinical sciences @ 50% |
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