Abstract. Macaques serve as important animal models for biomedical research. Viral
infection of macaques can compromise animal health as well as the results of
biomedical research, and infected animals constitute an occupational health
risk. Therefore, monitoring macaque colonies for viral infection is an
important task. We used a commercial chip-based assay to analyze sera of
231 macaques for the presence of antibody responses against nine animal and
human viruses. We report high seroprevalence of cytomegalovirus (CMV),
lymphocryptovirus (LCV), rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV) and simian foamy virus
(SFV) antibodies in all age groups. In contrast, antibodies against simian
retrovirus type D (SRV/D) and simian T cell leukemia virus (STLV) were
detected only in 5 % and 10 % of animals, respectively, and were only
found in adult or aged animals. Moreover, none of the animals had antibodies
against herpes B virus (BV), in keeping with the results of in-house tests
previously used for screening. Finally, an increased seroprevalence of
measles virus antibodies in animals with extensive exposure to multiple
humans for extended periods of time was observed. However, most of these
animals were obtained from external sources, and a lack of information on the
measles antibody status of the animals at the time of arrival precluded
drawing reliable conclusions from the data. In sum, we show, that in the
colony studied, CMV, LCV, RRV and SFV infection was ubiquitous and likely
acquired early in life while SRV/D and STLV infection was rare and likely
acquired during adulthood.