Discovery of virus pathogen from soft-shelled turtle Trionyx sinesis

摘要

THE soft-shelled turtle Trionyx sinesis, because of its nutritional and medicinal values, has been widely cultivated in the recent 10 years. Unfortunately, epizootic outbreaks of some lethal diseases usually occurred in densely stocked young turtle ponds, which became restricted factors for development of the turtle cultivation. Although some symptoms, such as shell perforation (furuncle), redneck, ulcerated skin, blisters, white spots, white dots and water mycosis, have been described, no good therapy or prevention methods are established. The major problem is that the pathogen causing the diseases has not been identified. During cultivation, once the disease occurs, several symptoms appear simultaneously, spread rapidly, and lead to the death of almost all of the turtles. Recently, we ran into the situation of epizootic outbreak with many symptoms during cultivation. The epizootic outbreak and lethality implicated that virus might be associated with the disease. We collected the dying turtles with typical symptoms, and made an attempt to isolate virus from the internal tissues. By electron microscopy observation, virus structure polypeptide analysis and sensitivity tests for the ability to infect cell line, we identified the diseased pathogen asvirus. This discovery not only revealed the diseased pathogen, but also provided a new way to study the mechanism and to investigate the therapy and prevention methods for the disease in terms of molecular biology and immunology.