Novel Divergent Polar Bear-Associated Mastadenovirus Recovered from a Deceased Juvenile Polar Bear.

ABSTRACT: Polar bears in captivity can be exposed to opportunistic pathogens not present in their natural environments. A 4-month-old polar bear (Ursus maritimus) living in an isolated enclosure with his mother in the Tierpark Berlin, Berlin, Germany, was suffering from severe abdominal pain, mild diarrhea, and loss of appetite and died in early 2017. Histopathology revealed severe hepatic degeneration and necrosis without evidence of inflammation or inclusion bodies, although a viral infection had been suspected on the basis of the clinical signs. We searched for nucleic acids of pathogens by shotgun high-throughput sequencing (HTS) from genomic DNA and cDNA extracted from tissue and blood. We identified a novel Mastadenovirus and assembled a nearly complete genome from the shotgun se

SUBMITTER: Dayaram A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6060345 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature