Microscopic and Molecular Evidence of the First Elasmobranch Adomavirus, the Cause of Skin Disease in a Giant Guitarfish, Rhynchobatus djiddensis.

ABSTRACT: Only eight families of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses are known to infect vertebrate animals. During an investigation of papillomatous skin disease in an elasmobranch species, the giant guitarfish (Rhynchobatus djiddensis), a novel virus, distinct from all known viral families in regard to particle size, morphology, genome organization, and helicase phylogeny was discovered. Large inclusion bodies containing 75-nm icosahedral viral particles were present within epithelial cell nuclei in the proliferative skin lesions. Deep metagenomic sequencing revealed a 22-kb circular dsDNA viral genome, tentatively named guitarfish "adomavirus" (GAdoV), with only distant homology to two other fish viruses, Japanese eel endothelial cell-infecting virus (JEECV) and a recently reported marbled

SUBMITTER: Dill JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5954223 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature