Abstract
Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1) is the causative agent of Borna disease, an often fatal neurologic condition of domestic mammals, including New World camelids, in endemic areas in Central Europe. Recently, BoDV-1 gained further attention by the confirmation of fatal zoonotic infections in humans. Although Borna disease and BoDV-1 have been described already over the past decades, comprehensive reports of Borna disease outbreaks in domestic animals employing state-of-the-art diagnostic methods are missing. Here, we report a series of BoDV-1 infections in a herd of 27 alpacas (Vicugna pacos) in the federal state of Brandenburg, Germany, which resulted in eleven fatalities (41%) within ten months. Clinical courses ranged from sudden death without previous clinical signs to acute or chronic neurologic disease with death occurring after up to six months. All animals that underwent necropsy exhibited a non-suppurative encephalitis. In addition, six apparently healthy seropositive individuals were identified within the herd, suggesting subclinical BoDV-1 infections. In infected animals, BoDV-1 RNA and antigen were mainly restricted to the central nervous system and the eye, and sporadically detectable in large peripheral nerves and neuronal structures in other tissues. Pest control measures on the farm resulted in the collection of a BoDV-1-positive bicoloured white-toothed shrew (Crocidura leucodon), while all other trapped small mammals were negative. A phylogeographic analysis of BoDV-1 sequences from the alpacas, the shrew and BoDV-1-positive equine cases from the same region in Brandenburg revealed a previously unreported endemic area of BoDV-1 cluster 4 in North-Western Brandenburg. In conclusion, alpacas appear to be highly susceptible to BoDV-1 infection and display a highly variable clinical picture ranging from peracute death to subclinical forms. In addition to horses and sheep, they can serve as sensitive sentinels used for the identification of endemic areas.
Highlights
Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1, species Mammalian 1 orthobornavirus, family Bornaviridae, order Mononegavirales) is the causative agent of Borna disease, an often fatal neurologic condition of horses, sheep and other domestic mammals (Dürrwald, Nowotny, Beer, & Kuhn, 2016; Richt & Rott, 2001)
These species serve as dead-end hosts to the virus, in which it is strictly neurotropic and induces an immune-mediated non-suppurative encephalitis leading to neurologic deficits, including behavioural abnormalities, apathy, somnolence-like conditions, ataxia and central blindness (Caplazi et al, 1999; Dürrwald et al, 2016; Richt & Rott, 2001; Schmidt, 1951)
To identify the potential pathogen, nucleic acids extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue from different areas of the central nervous system of animal M1 and from frozen brain samples of animal M2 were analysed by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) using a metagenomics approach
Summary
Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1, species Mammalian 1 orthobornavirus, family Bornaviridae, order Mononegavirales) is the causative agent of Borna disease, an often fatal neurologic condition of horses, sheep and other domestic mammals (Dürrwald, Nowotny, Beer, & Kuhn, 2016; Richt & Rott, 2001). The virus can be transmitted to a broad range of other mammals, including humans, horses, sheep and New World camelids (Caplazi et al, 1999; Dürrwald et al, 2016; Jacobsen et al, 2010; Korn et al, 2018; Schlottau et al, 2018) These species serve as dead-end hosts to the virus, in which it is strictly neurotropic and induces an immune-mediated non-suppurative encephalitis leading to neurologic deficits, including behavioural abnormalities, apathy, somnolence-like conditions, ataxia and central blindness (Caplazi et al, 1999; Dürrwald et al, 2016; Richt & Rott, 2001; Schmidt, 1951). The report provides comprehensive data on the course of disease, neuropathology, diagnostic measures, viral tissue distribution and epidemiology
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