A novel type of paramyxovirus found in Hungary in a masked water snake (Homalopsis buccata) with pneumonia supports the suggested new taxonomy within the Ferlavirus genus

Fatal Systemic Necrotizing Infections Associated with a Novel Paramyxovirus, Anaconda Paramyxovirus, in Green Anaconda Juveniles

“…The widespread pathological findings in skin, subcutaneous tissue, and multiple internal organs were in line with the observation of high viral loads, with a median of 5.11 ϫ 10 6 copies of AnaPV RNA per mg of tissue, in skin, kidney, liver, thyroid, lung, heart, pancreas, and gastrointestinal specimens obtained from the dead green anaconda juveniles (Table 2), and the in vitro characteristic of the virus to replicate in a large variety of cell lines from various organs and tissues (see Table S1 in the supplemental material). This pathogenic characteristic of AnaPV is similar to that observed for FDLV, which was originally discovered in a common lancehead snake during a disease outbreak in a snake farm in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1972, as well as other paramyxovirus-like agents isolated from a variety of reptile species causing epizootics with high mortality rates in snakes and other reptiles (26)(27)(28)(29)(30). Notably, the internal organs that showed the most serious pathologies in the anaconda juveniles infected by AnaPV were the kidneys, whereas the organs that were most severely affected by FDLV were the lungs (18,31,32).…”

First recorded case of paramyxovirus infection introduced into a healthy snake collection in Croatia

“…The phylogenetic relationship analysis of the obtained sequences showed that all analyzed PMV sequences grouped into group B (Fig. 1) of the proposed genus Ferlavirus [11]. Sequences CRO-PMV-1, CRO-PMV-3, CRO-PMV-4 and CRO-PMV-6 to CRO-PMV-11 were found to be 100% identical among themselves in the 443 nt L-gene region, while sequences CRO-PMV-2, CRO-PMV-12 and CRO-PMV-5 differed from these sequences in one nucleotide on positions 241 and 413, respectively.…”

“…Twelve gel purified PCR amplicons (Wizard SV gel and PCR Clean up system, Promega, USA) derived from 10 snakes were sequenced directly (Macrogen Inc., Amsterdam, The Netherlands). To determine the phylogenetic grouping of the obtained sequences (GenBank KU207735 to KU207746) the prototype PMV sequences [11] were retrieved from GenBank. Also, similar sequences obtained using BLAST algorithm (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) were included in the study.…”

“…Paramyxoviruses (PMV) are negative sensed single stranded RNA viruses with a helical nucleocapsid packaged in a pleomorphic envelope and are classified as members of the Paramyxoviridae family, genus Ferlavirus [5, 6, 11]. According to studies based on partial sequences of L, HN, and U genes [1, 11, 3], members of the genus Ferlavirus are grouped into three subgroups, subgroups A, B and C. There are numerous reports of Ferlavirus isolation worldwide from zoological and private collections.…”

“…According to studies based on partial sequences of L, HN, and U genes [1, 11, 3], members of the genus Ferlavirus are grouped into three subgroups, subgroups A, B and C. There are numerous reports of Ferlavirus isolation worldwide from zoological and private collections. Up to now, the occurrence of PMVs has been detected in several snake (sub) families: Colubridae, Elapidae, Viperidae, Crotalidae, Boidae and Pythonidae [4, 7, 9, 11]. The purchase and introduction of new reptiles into an established collection is of high risk in regards to disease spread and manifestation as well as a probable cause of a higher mortality rate.…”