Two Lineages of Papillomaviruses Identified from Caracals () in South Africa.

Papillomaviruses (PV) infect epithelial cells and can cause hyperplastic or neoplastic lesions. In felids, most described PVs are from domestic cats (; n = 7 types), with one type identified in each of the five wild felid species studied to date (, , , and ). PVs from domestic cats are highly diverse and are currently classified into three genera (, , and ), whereas those from wild felids, although diverse, are all classified into the genus. In this study, we used a metagenomic approach to identify ten novel PV genomes from rectal swabs of five deceased caracals () living in the greater Cape Town area, South Africa. These are the first PVs to be described from caracals, and represent six new PV types, i.e., Caracal caracal papillomavirus (CcarPV) 1-6. These CcarPV fall into two phylogenetically distinct genera: , and . Two or more PV types were identified in a single individual for three of the five caracals, and four caracals shared at least one of the same PV types with another caracal. This study broadens our understanding of wild felid PVs and provides evidence that there may be several wild felid PV lineages.