Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Diseases of Aquatic Organisms
Publication Date
1-1-2023
Volume
154
First Page
131
Last Page
139
Keywords
Alphaherpesvirinae, Herpesviridae, MoAHV1, Monodontid alphaherpesvirus 1, Narwhal herpesvirus, Next-generation sequencing, Virus isolation
DOI
10.3354/dao03732
ISSN
01775103
Abstract
We report the detection of an alphaherpesvirus infecting an adult female narwhal Monodon monoceros captured live during a tagging project in Tremblay Sound, Nunavut, Canada, in August 2018. The individual had 2 open wounds on the dorsum but appeared in good overall health. A blowhole swab was collected, and subsequent virus isolation was performed using a beluga whale primary cell line. Non-syncytial cytopathic effects were seen, in contrast to syncytial cytopathic effects described for monodontid alphaherpesvirus 1 (MoAHV1) isolates previously recovered from beluga whales Delphinapterus leucas from Alaska, USA, and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Next-generation sequencing was performed on a sequencing library generated from the DNA of the viral isolate and the analysis of the assembled contigs permitted the recovery of 6 genes, conserved in all members of the family Orthoherpesviridae, for downstream genetic and phylogenetic analyses. BLASTN (basic local alignment search tool, searching nucleotide databases using a nucleotide query) analyses of the narwhal herpesvirus conserved genes showed the highest nucleotide identities to MoAHV1, ranging between 88.5 and 96.8%. A maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis based on concatenation of the 6 conserved herpesviruses amino acid alignments revealed the narwhal herpesvirus (NHV) to be the closest relative to MoAHV1, forming a clade within the subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae, genus Varicellovirus. NHV is the first alphaherpesvirus characterized from a narwhal and represents a new viral species, which we propose to be known as Varicellovirus monodontidalpha2. Further research is needed to determine the prevalence and potential clinical impacts of this alphaherpesvirus infection in narwhals.
E-ISSN
16161580
PubMed ID
37410432
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Nielsen, Ole; Rodrigues, Thaís C.S.; Marcoux, Marianne; Béland, Karine; Subramaniam, Kuttichantran; Lair, Stéphane; Hussey, Nigel E.; and Waltzek, Thomas B.. (2023). Alphaherpesvirus infection in a free-ranging narwhal Monodon monoceros from Arctic Canada. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, 154, 131-139.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ibiopub/171