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1 January 2013 Novel Polyomaviral Infection in the Placenta of a Northern Fur Seal (Callorhinus ursinus) on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, USA
Colleen Duncan, Tracey Goldstein, Carol Hearne, Tom Gelatt, Terry Spraker
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Viruses of the family Polyomaviridae infect a wide variety of avian and mammalian hosts with a broad spectrum of outcomes including asymptomatic infection, acute systemic disease, and tumor induction. In 2010, intranuclear viral inclusion bodies were identified in trophoblasts of a single northern fur seal (NFS; Callorhinus ursinus) placenta from a presumed healthy birth on St. Paul Island, Alaska. On transmission electron microscopy, virions were approximately 40 nm in diameter and were arranged in paracrystal-line arrays within the nucleus. The tissue was positive for the polyomaviral major capsid gene (VP1) by PCR, and the sequenced product revealed a novel Orthopolyomavirus. Twenty-nine additional NFS placentas, devoid of viral inclusions on histologic examination, were tested for polyomavirus by PCR; all were negative. The significance of this novel virus for the infected animal is unknown, but the virus does not appear to be very prevalent within the placentas from newborn northern fur seal pups.

Colleen Duncan, Tracey Goldstein, Carol Hearne, Tom Gelatt, and Terry Spraker "Novel Polyomaviral Infection in the Placenta of a Northern Fur Seal (Callorhinus ursinus) on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, USA," Journal of Wildlife Diseases 49(1), 163-167, (1 January 2013). https://doi.org/10.7589/2012-04-101
Received: 8 April 2012; Accepted: 1 June 2012; Published: 1 January 2013
KEYWORDS
Alaska
Callorhinus ursinus
northern fur seal
Orthopolyomavirus
placenta
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