Epidemiological surveillance of feline coronavirus infection and feline infectious peritonitis associated host genetic polymorphisms
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Wang, Ying-Ting
Abstract
Feline coronavirus (FCoV) is an ubiquitous viral pathogen in the cat populations. The infection of FCoV is usually asymptomatic. However, less than 5% of the seropositive cats develop a highly lethal immune-mediated disease, feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). Until now, neither effective treatment nor protective vaccine is available. Euthanasia is suggested once the disease was diagnosed, as all FIP cats eventually died from this disease. To date, several questions remain unsolved regarding roles of the virus and the host genetic factors contributing to the development of FIP. The virus that causes FIP (FIPV) is believed to occur sporadically and spread infrequently from cat to cat. However, an FIP outbreak from a private animal shelter that causes 13 out of 46 cats died from FIP was confirmed in our lab recently. Sequence analysis of the S and 3c gene showed that the FIPVs of the outbreak were from the same origin and the results indicate that horizontal transmission of FIPV is possible and that FIP cats can pose a potential risk to other cats living in the same environment. Serotype II FCoV was suggested to be significantly correlated with FIP and an outbreak caused by this type of FCoV has been confirmed. A Baculovirus-expressed type-specific spike proteins based assay was used fro the seroprevalence study of two types of FCoV in the past eight years in Taiwan was firstly carried out. Type I FCoV was found to be predominant compared to type II virus. Results derived from serotyping and genotyping support our current understanding of the evolution of disease-related FCoV and the transmission of FIP. With an immune-mediated disease entity, host genetic variant was suggested to influence the occurrence of FIP. The association between the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of tumor necrosis factor-α (fTNFA), DC-SIGN (CD209), and the five FIP-associated SNPs identified from Birman cats, and the outcome of FCoV infection was determined. Among the 57 SNPs identified, five of them, including one in the promoter region of fTNFA, one in the coding region of extracellular domain of DC-SIGN, and three in the introns of CD209 were associated with the outcome of FCoV infections. None of the five Birman FIP cat-associated SNPs showed significant differences between our FIP and non-FIP groups. As disease resistance is multifactorial, the five genetic traits identified in this study should facilitate in the future breeding of the disease-resistant animal to reduce the occurrence of cats succumbing to FIP.
Subjects
feline coronavirus
feline infectious peritonitis
type II FCoV
outbreak of FIP
baculovirus expressed type specific S protein
serosurveillance
host genetic polymorphisms
tumor necrosis factor-alpha
C-type lectin DC-SIGN
SDGs
Type
thesis
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