A virus that melts sea stars

Sea stars are lovely marine invertebrates with a round central body connected to multiple radiating legs (photo credit). In the past year millions of sea stars in the west coast waters of North America have melted into piles of slime and ossicles. Sea star associated densovirus might be the cause of this lethal disease. Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) is characterized by lesions, limb curling and deflation, and death as the animals rapidly degrade or ‘melt’. The current outbreak began in June 2013 and has killed sea stars from Baja California, Mexico, to Southern Alaska. SSWD might be the biggest marine wildlife epizootic ever observed. Evidence that SSWD is caused by a virus came from experiments in which extracts of diseased sea stars were passed through a filter with pore sizes small enough to allow passage of viruses but not bacteria or other microbes. When injected into healthy sea stars, these filtrates induced sea star wasting disease. Extracts of diseased sea stars collected in Vancouver, CA contained 25 nanometer virus particles, as determined by electron microscopy. Nucleic acid sequencing was to identify the viral agent of SSWD. Virus particles were purified from diseased animals, and both DNA and RNA was extracted. Analysis of the nucleotide sequences revealed the presence of giant DNA viruses such as mimiviruses and phycodnaviruses (link to algal virus paper), and among RNA viruses, retroviruses, dicistroviruses, and parvoviruses. With few exceptions, all...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Information densovirus echinoderm marine invertebrate parvovirus Pycnopodia helianthoides sea star starfish viral Source Type: blogs