title: Comparison of glycoprotein B (gB) variants of the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) isolated from Asian elephants (Elephas maximus).
abstract: The recently described elephant endotheliotropic herpesviruses (EEHV) have been associated with the deaths of numerous captive elephants. A proposed tool for the detection of EEHV infection in elephants is the PCR-based screening for EEHV-DNA in whole blood samples. Unfortunately, this detection method has only been successful in post-mortem analyses or in animals already displaying clinical signs of EEHV disease, thus rendering this method unsuitable for identification of carrier elephants. Here, we focus on glycoprotein B (gB) for serologic assay development, since gB is an envelope protein known to induce a neutralising antibody response in other herpesvirus infections. We sequenced the entire gB gene from five Asian elephants with EEHV, representing four different gB variants. Computer-aided methods were used to predict functionally important regions within EEHVgB. An extra-cytoplasmic region of 153 amino acids was predicted to be under positive selection and may potentially contain antigenic determinants that will be useful for future serologic assay development.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Strasse 17, D-10315 Berlin, Germany. fickel@izw-berlin.de
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fickel
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lieckfeldt
authors.forename: L K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Richman
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Streich
authors.forename: T B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Hildebrandt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pitra
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000940:Antigenic Variation / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000097:blood / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004606:Elephants / Q000097:blood / Q000821:virology*; D006023:Glycoproteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D006564:Herpesviridae / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D006566:Herpesviridae Infections / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000662:veterinary; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D006023:Glycoproteins; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins