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. 2024 Sep 17;7(1):1017.
doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06652-1.

Beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) persists in tissues of asymptomatic wild Crimson Rosellas

Berta Blanch-Lázaro  1   2   3 , Anthony Chamings  4   5   6 , Raoul F H Ribot  7 , Tarka Raj Bhatta  4   8   9 , Mathew L Berg  7   10 , Soren Alexandersen  4   5   11   12 , Andrew T D Bennett  7   13
Affiliations

Beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) persists in tissues of asymptomatic wild Crimson Rosellas

Berta Blanch-Lázaro et al. Commun Biol. .

Abstract

Infectious diseases can drive populations and species to extinction. Beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) is a circovirus of global conservation concern that can infect all Psittaciformes and some other species. Yet some parrot species, such as Crimson rosellas (Platycercus elegans), can live successfully with high BFDV prevalence (>40%) with no clinical signs reported in infected individuals. We assessed BFDV load in 10-12 tissues per bird, from n = 66 P. elegans, to reveal tissue tropism and BFDV persistence in tissues. Here we show that in 94% of individuals, BFDV was detected in one or more tissues. While BFDV replicated to high levels in subadults, in adults (some confirmed seropositive) the virus persisted in various tissues at much lower levels. Our findings reveal that BFDV is much more common in wild P. elegans than previously thought and suggest that current screening practices (mostly on blood) may substantially underestimate BFDV infection estimates, with implications for biosecurity and conservation programs globally.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Virus loads of BFDV-positive tissues in P. elegans, shown separately by age class.
plot shows the distribution of BFDV virus load for each tissue (each dot represents a BFDV-positive data point) by age class, from all P. elegans (n = 66). Virus load is expressed in log10 form, with the median (black line) and the 25–75 percentiles (blue lines) indicated for each tissue type. The detection limit was set at log10 = 0.5 for illustration purposes only, indicating that we considered negative or “undetected” any value < 3 BFDV copies/106 cells. To highlight the differences between positive tissues, negative values were not plotted. Fractions on top of each plot indicates the total number of positive tissues out of the total analysed. Bursa was only identifiable in subadults.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Correlation of BFDV load between blood and each other tissue type.
Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) and significance (p-value) are shown in grey boxes for each correlation. Faeces were not included as their virus load values were not obtained.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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