Dispatches Molecular Genetic Evidence of a Novel Morbillivirus in a Long-Finned Pilot Whale (Globicephalus melas)

• Main Authors: Thomas G. Fanning, Amy E. Krafft, R. B. Moeller, S. E. Kodsi, M. G. Mense, Thomas P. Lipscomb
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific; Phoca vitulina; Phocoena phocoena
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.359.2989

A long-finned pilot whale with morbilliviral disease was stranded in New Jersey. An immunohistochemical stain demonstrated morbilliviral antigen. Reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction for morbillivirus P and N genes was positive. Novel sequences most closely related to, but distinct from, those of dolphin and porpoise morbilliviruses suggest that this virus may represent a third member of the cetacean morbillivirus group. In the last 12 years, newly recognized members of the morbillivirus family have caused many deaths among marine mammals, specifically cetaceans and pinnipeds (1). The first recognized marine mammal morbilliviral epizootic occurred in 1987-88 along the Atlantic coast of the United States (2,3). More than half the in-shore population of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) may have died. In 1988, thousands of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) (4) and small numbers of harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) (5) died in morbilliviral epizootics in northwestern Europe. A separate epizootic claimed thousands of striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) in the western Mediterranean (6). In 1993-94, another bottlenose dolphin epizootic occurred in the Gulf of Mexico (7,8). Recently, morbilliviral infection has been reported in cetaceans in the Pacific (9). Viruses have been cultured from animals from some of the epizootics, and novel marine mammal morbilliviruses have been recognized. Two cetacean morbilliviruses have been identified and named porpoise morbillivirus (PMV) and dolphin morbillivirus (DMV). PMV was isolated from harbor porpoises that died along the Irish coast. DMV was first identified in striped dolphins from the Mediterranean (10).