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1 Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA
2 Division of Pathology, Conservation and Research for Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego, San Diego, California 92112-0551, USA
3 Wildlife Conservation Society, St. Catherines Island Wildlife Survival Center, 182 Camellia Road, Midway, Georgia 31320, USA
4 Athens Diagnostic Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA
5 Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610-0266, USA
6 Box Turtle Conservation Trust, 304 E Bassell Avenue, Oil City, Pennsylvania 16301, USA
7 Department of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York 13902-6000, USA
8 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
9 Division of Laboratory Animal Resources, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA
10 Animal Diagnostic Laboratory, College of Agricultural Sciences, Orchard Road, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-1110, USA
14 Corresponding author (email: JacobsonE{at}mail.vetmed.ufl.edu)
ABSTRACT:
Iridoviruses of the genus Ranavirus are well known for causing mass mortality events of fish and amphibians with sporadic reports of infection in reptiles. This article describes five instances of Ranavirus infection in chelonians between 2003 and 2005 in Georgia, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, USA. Affected species included captive Burmese star tortoises (Geochelone platynota), a free-ranging gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), free-ranging eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina), and a Florida box turtle (Terrepene carolina bauri). Evidence for Ranavirus infection was also found in archived material from previously unexplained mass mortality events of eastern box turtles from Georgia in 1991 and from Texas in 1998. Consistent lesions in affected animals included necrotizing stomatitis and/or esophagitis, fibrinous and necrotizing splenitis, and multicentric fibrinoid vasculitis. Intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies were rarely observed in affected tissues. A portion of the major capsid protein (MCP) gene was sequenced from each case in 2003–2005 and found to be identical to each other and to Frog virus 3 (FV3) across 420 base pairs. Ranavirus infections were also documented in sympatric species of amphibians at two locations with infected chelonians. The fragment profiles of HindIII-digested whole genomic DNA of Ranavirus, isolated from a dead Burmese star tortoise and a southern leopard frog (Rana utricularia) found nearby, were similar. The box turtle isolate had a low molecular weight fragment that was not seen in the digestion profiles for the other isolates. These results suggest that certain amphibians and chelonians are infected with a similar virus and that different viruses exist among different chelonians. Amphibians may serve as a reservoir host for susceptible chelonians. This report also demonstrated that significant disease associated with Ranavirus infections are likely more widespread in chelonians than previously suspected.
Key words: FV3, iridovirus, Ranavirus, reptiles, tortoises, turtles.
1 Current address: St. Catherines Island Foundation, 182 Camellia Road, Midway, Georgia 31320, USA; and Georgia Sea Turtle Center, 214 Stable Road, Jekyll Island, Georgia 31527, USA
2 Current address: Wyeth Research, 1 Burtt Road, Andover, Massachusetts 01810, USA
3 Current address: The Nature Conservancy, Southeast Georgia Field Office, PO Box 484, Darien, Georgia 31305, USA
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