Publication Date:
1999-02-19
Description:
A highly fatal hemorrhagic disease has been identified in 10 young Asian and African elephants at North American zoos. In the affected animals there was ultrastructural evidence for herpesvirus-like particles in endothelial cells of the heart, liver, and tongue. Consensus primer polymerase chain reaction combined with sequencing yielded molecular evidence that confirmed the presence of two novel but related herpesviruses associated with the disease, one in Asian elephants and another in African elephants. Otherwise healthy African elephants with external herpetic lesions yielded herpesvirus sequences identical to that found in Asian elephants with endothelial disease. This finding suggests that the Asian elephant deaths were caused by cross-species infection with a herpesvirus that is naturally latent in, but normally not lethal to, African elephants. A reciprocal relationship may exist for the African elephant disease.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Richman, L K -- Montali, R J -- Garber, R L -- Kennedy, M A -- Lehnhardt, J -- Hildebrandt, T -- Schmitt, D -- Hardy, D -- Alcendor, D J -- Hayward, G S -- 1 K08 AI01526-01/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1999 Feb 19;283(5405):1171-6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Smithsonian, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC 20008, USA. lkrichma@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10024244" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Africa
;
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Animals
;
Animals, Zoo/*virology
;
Asia
;
Base Sequence
;
DNA, Viral/genetics
;
DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase/chemistry/genetics
;
Elephants/*virology
;
Endodeoxyribonucleases/chemistry/genetics
;
Endothelium, Vascular/pathology/*virology
;
Female
;
Genes, Viral
;
Hemorrhage/pathology/veterinary/virology
;
Herpesviridae/classification/genetics/*isolation & purification
;
Herpesviridae Infections/pathology/transmission/*veterinary/virology
;
Inclusion Bodies, Viral/ultrastructure
;
Male
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Phylogeny
;
Polymerase Chain Reaction
;
United States
;
Viral Proteins/genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink
