Abstract
Pestiviruses are widespread pathogens causing severe acute and chronic diseases among terrestrial mammals. Recently, Phocoena pestivirus (PhoPeV) was described in harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) of the North Sea, expanding the host range to marine mammals. While the role of the virus is unknown, intrauterine infections with the most closely related pestiviruses— Bungowannah pestivirus (BuPV) and Linda virus (LindaV)—can cause increased rates of abortions and deaths in young piglets. Such diseases could severely impact already vulnerable harbour porpoise populations. Here, we investigated the presence of PhoPeV in 77 harbour porpoises, 277 harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) and ringed seals (Pusa hispida) collected in the Baltic Sea region between 2002 and 2019. The full genome sequence of a pestivirus was obtained from a juvenile female porpoise collected along the coast of Zealand in Denmark in 2011. The comparative Bayesian phylogenetic analyses revealed a close relationship between the new PhoPeV sequence and previously published North Sea sequences with a recent divergence from genotype 1 sequences between 2005 and 2009. Our findings provide further insight into the circulation of PhoPeV and expand the distribution from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea region with possible implications for the vulnerable Belt Sea and endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise populations.
Highlights
The introduction of a viral disease with a range of possible health implications could be devastating. To date, it is not known whether porpoise pestiviruses occur in the Baltic Sea region and if so, how they relate to porpoise pestivirus strains recently detected in the North Sea
The first alignment was made to investigate the phylogenetic relationship between our novel porpoise pestivirus sequence, and the sequences detected in harbour porpoises from the North Sea
Phocoena pestivirus (PhoPeV) Pestivirus Detected in the Baltic Sea Region
Summary
In pregnant sows infected with such pestiviruses, reproductive failure, as well as chronic wasting, myocarditis, congenital tremor and other nervous system dysfunctions of newborn piglets, have been described Some of these traits could possibly occur in marine mammals infected by the novel porpoise pestivirus. The introduction of a viral disease with a range of possible health implications could be devastating To date, it is not known whether porpoise pestiviruses occur in the Baltic Sea region and if so, how they relate to porpoise pestivirus strains recently detected in the North Sea. Here, we conducted the first screening for Phocoena pestivirus in harbour porpoises collected in the Baltic Sea regions of Kattegat, the Danish Belt Sea, the Arkona Basin and the Bornholm. Additional analyses of the divergence between porpoise pestivirus and related species (represented by Bungowannah virus and Linda virus) were made to further elucidate the origin of porpoise pestivirus and the transmission of pestiviruses between land and sea
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