Identification of a previously undescribed divergent virus from the Flaviviridae family in an outbreak of equine serum hepatitis.

ABSTRACT: Theiler's disease is an acute hepatitis in horses that is associated with the administration of equine blood products; its etiologic agent has remained unknown for nearly a century. Here, we used massively parallel sequencing to explore samples from a recent Theiler's disease outbreak. Metatranscriptomic analysis of the short sequence reads identified a 10.5-kb sequence from a previously undescribed virus of the Flaviviridae family, which we designate "Theiler's disease-associated virus" (TDAV). Phylogenetic analysis clusters TDAV with GB viruses of the recently proposed Pegivirus genus, although it shares only 35.3% amino acid identity with its closest relative, GB virus D. An epidemiological survey of additional horses from three separate locations supports an association between TDAV in

SUBMITTER: Chandriani S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3625295 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature