Gilbert Martin, Hill Malcolm A M, Cheung Leah Y N, Kiser Patti K, Seryodkin Ivan V, Miquelle Dale G, Goodrich John M, Sulikhan Nadezhda, Uphyrkina Olga, Goncharuk Mikhail, Kerley Linda, Troyer Ryan M
Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America.
Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 2;20(7):e0327463. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0327463. eCollection 2025.
We sought to identify herpesviruses in wild Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) of the Russian Far East in and near the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik protected area. We used multiple herpesvirus consensus PCRs targeting the glycoprotein B and DNA polymerase genes followed by DNA sequencing to test blood samples collected over a 22-year period. We found identical herpesvirus sequences in 3 of 41 tigers by consensus PCR and 8 of 41 tigers (19.5%) using a virus-specific PCR. Persistent infection was demonstrated in a tiger that remained virus DNA-positive in three blood samples over a 2.5-year period. Surprisingly, the viral DNA sequence present in tigers had 98.8% identity to mustelid gammaherpesvirus 1 (MusGHV1) commonly found in European badgers (Meles meles), which do not range to the Russian Far East. We then tested 69 blood samples from 11 other carnivore species collected in this region and found that 81.0% (17/21) of Asian badgers (Meles leucurus), but no other species, had MusGHV1 sequences with 99.8-100% identity to those found in tigers. Interaction between Amur tigers and Asian badgers is supported by previous studies demonstrating that badgers are a common prey species for tigers in this region. Taken together, these results are consistent with the interpretation that a strain of MusGHV1 common in Asian badgers was transmitted via predator-prey interactions to Amur tigers. While gammaherpesviruses are generally thought to exhibit strong host species-specificity, our results present an example of cross-species transmission and one of the first examples, to our knowledge, of gammaherpesvirus predator-prey transmission. In addition, we identified novel gammaherpesviruses in sable (Martes zibellina), Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), and brown bear (Ursus arctos).
我们试图在锡霍特-阿林生物圈保护区及其附近的俄罗斯远东地区野生东北虎（Panthera tigris altaica）中鉴定疱疹病毒。我们使用了针对糖蛋白B和DNA聚合酶基因的多种疱疹病毒通用PCR，随后进行DNA测序，以检测在22年期间采集的血液样本。通过通用PCR在41只老虎中的3只中发现了相同的疱疹病毒序列，使用病毒特异性PCR在41只老虎中的8只（19.5%）中发现了相同序列。在一只老虎中证实了持续性感染，该老虎在2.5年期间的三份血液样本中病毒DNA均呈阳性。令人惊讶的是，老虎体内存在的病毒DNA序列与欧洲獾（Meles meles）中常见的鼬科γ疱疹病毒1（MusGHV1）有98.8%的同一性，而欧洲獾并不分布于俄罗斯远东地区。然后，我们检测了该地区采集的来自其他11种食肉动物物种的69份血液样本，发现81.0%（17/21）的亚洲獾（Meles leucurus）含有与老虎体内发现的序列有99.8 - 100%同一性的MusGHV1序列，而其他物种未发现。之前的研究表明獾是该地区老虎的常见猎物物种，这支持了东北虎与亚洲獾之间存在相互作用的观点。综上所述，这些结果与以下解释一致：亚洲獾中常见的一种MusGHV1毒株通过捕食者 - 猎物相互作用传播给了东北虎。虽然γ疱疹病毒通常被认为表现出很强的宿主物种特异性，但我们的结果提供了一个跨物种传播的例子，据我们所知，也是γ疱疹病毒捕食者 - 猎物传播的首批例子之一。此外，我们在紫貂（Martes zibellina）、亚洲黑熊（Ursus thibetanus）和棕熊（Ursus arctos）中鉴定出了新型γ疱疹病毒。
