Fahsbender Elizabeth, Rosario Karyna, Cannon John P, Gulland Frances, Dishaw Larry J, Breitbart Mya
University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, 140 7th Avenue South, Saint Petersburg, FL 33701 USA.
University of South Florida, College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, 801 6th Street South, Saint Petersburg, FL 33701 USA.
Sci Rep. 2015 May 12;5:9637. doi: 10.1038/srep09637.
New diseases in marine animals are emerging at an increasing rate, yet methodological limitations hinder characterization of viral infections. Viral metagenomics is an effective method for identifying novel viruses in diseased animals; however, determining virus pathogenesis remains a challenge. A novel anellovirus (Zalophus californianus anellovirus, ZcAV) was recently reported in the lungs of captive California sea lions involved in a mortality event. ZcAV was not detected by PCR in the blood of these animals, creating the inability to assess the prevalence of ZcAV in live sea lions. This study developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect antibodies to ZcAV in sea lion serum. To assess ZcAV prevalence, paired serum and lung samples (n = 96) from wild sea lions that stranded along the California coast were tested through ELISA and PCR, respectively. Over 50% of the samples tested positive for ZcAV by ELISA (34%), PCR (29%), or both (11%) assays. ZcAV is prevalent in stranded wild sea lion populations and results suggest that PCR assays alone may grossly underestimate ZcAV exposure. This ELISA provides a tool for testing live sea lions for ZcAV exposure and is valuable for subsequent studies evaluating the potential pathogenicity of this anellovirus.
海洋动物中的新疾病正以越来越快的速度出现，但方法上的局限性阻碍了对病毒感染的特征描述。病毒宏基因组学是一种识别患病动物中新型病毒的有效方法；然而，确定病毒的发病机制仍然是一项挑战。最近在一次死亡事件中，在圈养的加利福尼亚海狮的肺部发现了一种新型环状病毒（加利福尼亚海狮环状病毒，ZcAV）。在这些动物的血液中通过PCR未检测到ZcAV，因此无法评估ZcAV在活体海狮中的流行情况。本研究开发了一种酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA）方法来检测海狮血清中针对ZcAV的抗体。为了评估ZcAV的流行情况，分别通过ELISA和PCR对来自加利福尼亚海岸搁浅的野生海狮的配对血清和肺样本（n = 96）进行了检测。超过50%的样本通过ELISA（34%）、PCR（29%）或两种检测方法（11%）检测出ZcAV呈阳性。ZcAV在搁浅的野生海狮种群中普遍存在，结果表明仅通过PCR检测可能会严重低估ZcAV的感染情况。这种ELISA为检测活体海狮是否感染ZcAV提供了一种工具，对于后续评估这种环状病毒潜在致病性的研究具有重要价值。
