title: Faecal virome of red foxes from peri-urban areas.
abstract: Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are the most abundant carnivore species in the Northern Hemisphere. Since their populations are well established in peri-urban and urban areas, they represent a potential reservoir of viruses that transmit from wildlife to humans or domestic animals. In this study, we evaluated the faecal virome of juvenile and adult foxes from peri-urban areas in central Croatia. The dominating mammalian viruses were fox picobirnavirus and parvovirus. The highest number of viral reads (N=1412) was attributed to a new fox circovirus and complete viral genome was de novo assembled from the high-throughput sequencing data. Fox circovirus is highly similar to dog circoviruses identified in diseased dogs in USA and Italy, and to a recently discovered circovirus of foxes with neurologic disease from the United Kingdom. Our fox picobirnavirus was more closely related to the porcine and human picobirnaviruses than to known fox picobirnaviruses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Croatian Veterinary Institute, Zagreb, Croatia. Electronic address: ilojkic@veinst.hr.
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lojkić
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biđin
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Croatian Veterinary Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Prpić
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Croatian Veterinary Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Šimić
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Croatian Veterinary Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Krešić
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Croatian Veterinary Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Tomislav
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bedeković
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D017925:Circovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D017523:Croatia; D004197:Disease Reservoirs / Q000662:veterinary / Q000821:virology; D004285:Dogs; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology*; D005589:Foxes / Q000821:virology*; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D054892:Metagenome; D064307:Microbiota; D017992:Parvovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D010802:Phylogeny; D018708:Picobirnavirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013552:Swine; D014505:Urban Population
keywords: Circovirus; Parvovirus; Picobirnavirus; Red fox; Viral metagenome