CPB 697 RESEARCH SEMINAR
Dinesh Singh, BVSc, MVSc, PhD
Graduate Student in Anatomic Pathology
Department of Comparative Pathobiology
“Cutaneous Fibromatosis
And Systemic Poxviral
Disease In Squirrels:
A Pathologic And Molecular
Investigation”
Thursday, March 6, 2008
VPTH
112
3:30
pm
Abstract:
Cutaneous fibromatosis and systemic poxviral disease were diagnosed in two American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) and one gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) that were submitted to the necropsy service of Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory during 2005-2006. Gross pathology, histopathology, and electron microscopic findings were typical of the poxviral disease caused by the squirrel fibroma virus, a member of the genus Leporipoxvirus. In order to establish molecular genetic relationship of the poxvirus, a polymerase chain reaction assay targeting the highly conserved DNA dependent DNA polymerases gene of rabbit fibroma virus, another member of the genus Leporipoxvirus was developed. Poxvirus-specific PCR amplicons were sequenced and nucleotide sequence data from all three squirrels were compared with corresponding nucleotide sequences from other poxviruses. To our knowledge, this is the first report of poxviral disease in red squirrels and also the first use of molecular diagnostics for squirrel fibromatosis. These cases will be presented along with a brief overview of other poxviral diseases.