Presentations

The body of a male pygmy marmoset arrived at the SZIE-ÁOTK Department of Pathology and Forensic Veterinary Medicine on 15th August 2009 for pathological examination. The marmoset was two and a half years old and weighed 118 g. Before death it showed indeterminate symptoms: it was listless, its appetite fell and it sneezed once in a while. During the dissection and histological examination subacute pneumonia was diagnosed accompanied by the following features: hydrothorax, proliferation and desquamation of the bronchial epithelium, scaling of the epithelium of the lung alveoli and giant cell formation. In order to clarify the clinical background of the mutations in the lung, samples were sent to the SZIE-ÁOTK Epidemiology and Microbiology Department. By means of virus isolation using the swine testis (ST) cell line, cell rounding causing virus could be isolatede which was chloroform resistant and could be blocked in its multiplication with halogenized dezoxi-uridine derivatives. Both from the original sample, and from the supernatant of the cell culture a gene compartment with a length of 1020 nucleotides could be amplified using primers designed for the conservative region of the polymerase gene of all double-stranded DNA viruses. The nucleotide sequence of this gene compartment was determined by us. For analysing the determined sequences we used BLAST and CLUSTAL X computer programs. In the course of our further work we determined and compared the similarity of three conservative and three variable genes with the homologous ones of other adenoviruses on nucleotide, and amino acid level. Polimerase: CAdV-2 73 % on nukleotide level, bat 74 % on amino acid level. Penton: CAdV-2 73 % 83 % respectively, protease: CAdV-1 74 % 77 % respectively, small T antigen bat 59 % 52 % respectively, IVa2 bat 73 % CAdV-2 74 % respectively, fiber CAdV-2 54 % 42 % respectively. On the basis of the sequence- examination we concluded that a new, currently unidentified adenovirus had been isolated, which has only a 73% similarity on the most conservative polymerase and protease genes with the lines isolated from a dog. The most ancient adenovirus of primates is similar on its 5' end to the bat adenovirus sequence published recently, and its ITR region can not be detected like in the case of the bat virus, which is a common feature shared with all other adenoviruses. The great genetic distance of the genes we examined from typical primate adenoviruses and their consequent similarity to the dog and bat adenoviruses suggest that this virus is an early split of the primates’ adenoviruses. The coevolution theory of DNA viruses may provide opportunities to confirm the geographical spread of certain hosts based on examination of viral evolution. If this hypothesis is correct it might be possible to investigate the migratory routes of New World monkeys by means of genetic studies of adenoviruses isolated from genetically similar primates.