Genomic characterization of a circovirus associated with fatal hemorrhagic enteritis in dog, Italy

Abstract

Dog circovirus (DogCV) was identified in an outbreak of enteritis in pups in Italy. The disease was observed in 6 young dachshunds pups of a litter from a breeding kennel and caused the death of 2 dogs. Upon full-genome analysis, the virus detected in one of the dead pups (strain Bari/411-13) was closely related to DogCVs that have been recently isolated in the USA. The present study, if corroborated by further reports, could represent a useful contribution to the knowledge of the pathogenic potential of DogCV and its association with enteritis in dogs.

Figure 1. Phylogenetic analysis of DogCV strain Bari/411–13 and other circoviruses.

Neighbor-joining trees are based on the full-length genome (A), replicase (B) and capsid (C) protein genes. For phylogenetic tree construction, the reference strains and GenBank accession numbers are as reported in Table 1. The distantly-related Gyrovirus Chicken anemia virus (CAV) (M55918) was used as outgroup. A statistical support was provided by bootstrapping over 1,000 replicates. The scale bars indicate the estimated numbers of nucleotide or amino acid substitutions.