Global phylogenetic analysis of contemporary aleutian mink disease viruses (AMDVs)

Abstract

BackgroundAleutian mink disease has major economic consequences on the mink farming industry worldwide, as it causes a disease that affects both the fur quality and the health and welfare of the mink. The virus causing this disease is a single-stranded DNA virus of the genus Amdoparvovirus belonging to the family of Parvoviridae. In Denmark, infection with AMDV has largely been restricted to a region in the northern part of the country since 2001, affecting only 5% of the total Danish mink farms. However, in 2015 outbreaks of AMDV were diagnosed in all parts of the country. Initial analyses revealed that the out breaks were caused by two different strains of AMDV that were significant different from the circulating Danish strains. To track the source of these outbreaks, a major investigation of global AMDV strains was initiated.MethodsSamples from 13 different countries were collected and partial NS1 gene was sequenced and subjected to phylogenetic analyses.ResultsThe analyses revealed that AMDV exhibited substantial genetic diversity. No clear country wise clustering was evident, but exchange of viruses between countries was revealed. One of the Danish outbreaks was caused by a strain of AMDV that closely resembled a strain originating from Sweden. In contrast, we did not identify any potential source for the other and more widespread outbreak strain.ConclusionTo the authors knowledge this is the first major global phylogenetic study of contemporary AMDV partial NS1 sequences. The study proved that partial NS1 sequencing can be used to distinguish virus strains belonging to major clusters. The partial NS1 sequencing can therefore be a helpful tool in combination with epidemiological data, in relation to outbreak tracking. However detailed information on farm to farm transmission requires full genome sequencing.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12985-017-0898-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Molecular epidemiology of Aleutian mink disease virus causing outbreaks in mink farms from Southwestern Europe: a retrospective study from 2012 to 2019

“…Hence, these strains may represent the old ones from this area. This could explain why these sequences appear to be the most conserved ones in this study, even though similar NS1 sequences have recently been described in Poland [ 23 ] ( Supplementary Fig. 1 ).…”

“…1 ) illustrates the distribution of the Spanish strains regarding those published previously. The sequences from clade III of this study were grouped with the only three Spanish sequences previously described [ 23 ], without a strong relationship with the strains from other countries. The clade II sequences clustered mainly with the strains from Poland, Italy, Greece, and Sweden.…”

“…Accordingly, the application of molecular epidemiology has proved useful for tracking possible sources of AMDV infections [ 11 22 ]. This has encouraged many producing countries to characterize their AMDV strains molecularly, and study their relationship with strains from different regions and countries [ 14 15 23 24 ]. On the other hand, available data on Spanish AMDV strains are extremely scarce, and they do not represent the whole Spanish mink sector.…”

Ecology and Infection Dynamics of Multi-Host Amdoparvoviral and Protoparvoviral Carnivore Pathogens

“…Aleutian mink disease virus (AMDV, species Carnivore amdoparvovirus 1, genus Amdoparvovirus) is probably the most well-known virus of mink as it causes Aleutian disease, a chronic wasting syndrome characterized by high mortality and reproduction reduction in farmed mink [18]. Currently circulating AMDV strains probably originated in North America, but viruses have been diffused worldwide as a consequence of international animal trading and similar viral strains now circulate on farms and surrounding areas around the world [18,21,22]. Furthermore, other viruses within the genus Amdoparvovirus have recently been discovered that can infect related carnivores, such as skunk amdoparvovirus (SKAV), red panda amdoparvovirus (RpAPV), raccoon dog and fox amdoparvovirus (RFAV), gray fox amdovirus (GFAV) and red fox fecal amdovirus (RFFAV) [23][24][25][26][27].…”

Molecular Characterization and Evolutionary Analyses of Carnivore Protoparvovirus 1 NS1 Gene

“…Only a few studies described the dynamics driving genetic changes of the CPV and FPLV NS1 gene and the potential recombination events involving this gene [29,30], although recombination was hypothesized as a potential alternative source of genetic variations [18]. Moreover, the NS1 gene molecular features, as a useful tool in outbreak tracing, were only recently reconsidered [31,32]. Despite the most recent sequence analyses on CPV also including this genomic ORF, there are still limited studies on the FPLV NS1 sequence [30,33,34,35].…”