DNA Virome in Cardiac Tissue from Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) with Myocarditis

Hannon, Christabel, Sarker, Subir, Suen, Willy W., and Bielefeldt-Ohmann, Helle (2024) DNA Virome in Cardiac Tissue from Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) with Myocarditis. Viruses, 16 (7). 1053.

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Abstract

As part of a sea turtle health monitoring program on the central east coast of Queensland, Australia, stranded and sick green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) were subjected to necropsy and histopathology. A subset of these turtles had myocarditis of varying severity, which could not be attributed to parasitism by spirorchid flukes or bacterial infections. We, therefore, undertook an investigation to determine whether virus infections might be part of the pathogenesis. Deep sequencing revealed abundant DNA virus contigs in the heart tissue, of which CRESS and circoviruses appeared to be the most consistently present. Further analysis revealed the homology of some of the circoviruses to the beak and feather disease virus. While a causative link to myocarditis could not be established, the presence of these viruses may play a contributing role by affecting the immune system and overall health of animals exposed to pollutants, higher water temperatures, and decreasing nutrition.

Item ID: 83520
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1999-4915
Keywords: Chelonia mydas, circovirus, myocarditis, sea turtle, virome
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Copyright Information: © 2024 by the author. 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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Date Deposited: 02 Sep 2024 22:52
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