CA: Pandemic H1N1 Virus Found in Seals

[Shiloh]

Source: http://news.discovery.com/animals/sw...eals-13015.htm

Pandemic Swine Flu Virus Found in Seals
May 15, 2013 05:00 PM ET // by Jennifer Viegas

The swine flu virus that caused a 2009 pandemic has been found in elephant seals off the central California coast, according to new research.

The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, is the first report of the virus H1N1 in any marine mammal.

Researchers are now being advised to wear protective personal gear when working around marine mammals, to avoid the possibility of infection.

?H1N1 was circulating in humans in 2009,? lead author Tracey Goldstein said in a press release. ?The seals on land in early 2010 tested negative before they went to sea, but when they returned from sea in spring 2010, they tested positive. So the question is where did it come from?...?

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: CA: Pandemic H1N1 Virus Found in Seals

running a BLAST on one of the HA sequences shows it is
most similar to human 2009 H1N1 from Russia,
then human 2009 H1N1 from Zhejiang,
then human 2010 H1N1 from Thailand,
then human 2010 H1N1 from Goias (Brazil),
then human 2009 H1N1 from Zhejiang,
then human 2009 H1N1 from Chengdu (China),
then human 2009 H1N1 from Chita (Russia),
then the next 6 are all from China, then Seoul,
then Habarovsk (Russian far east),
then human 2009 H1N1 from New York,
then human 2010 H1N1 from Georgia (USA),
then human 2010 H1N1 from Pennsylvania,
then human 2010 H1N1 from Singapore,
then the next 7 are from China,
then Singapore,
then Texas,
then Tomsk (central Russia)'
then the next 4 are from China,
THEN>>>>swine from China,
then Netherlands, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl (above Moscow), China, Norway, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, etc.

.....there are many more 99% matches.

[Emily]

Re: CA: Pandemic H1N1 Virus Found in Seals

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0062259http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0062259

Pandemic H1N1 Influenza Isolated from Free-Ranging Northern Elephant Seals in 2010 off the Central California Coast

Tracey Goldstein equal contributor,
Ignacio Mena equal contributor,
Simon J. Anthony,
Rafael Medina,
Patrick W. Robinson,
Denise J. Greig,
Daniel P. Costa,
W. Ian Lipkin,
Adolfo Garcia-Sastre,
Walter M. Boyce

Abstract

Interspecies transmission of influenza A is an important factor in the evolution and ecology of influenza viruses. Marine mammals are in contact with a number of influenza reservoirs, including aquatic birds and humans, and this may facilitate transmission among avian and mammalian hosts. Virus isolation, whole genome sequencing, and hemagluttination inhibition assay confirmed that exposure to pandemic H1N1 influenza virus occurred among free-ranging Northern Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris) in 2010. Nasal swabs were collected from 42 adult female seals in April 2010, just after the animals had returned to the central California coast from their short post-breeding migration in the northeast Pacific. Swabs from two seals tested positive by RT-PCR for the matrix gene, and virus was isolated from each by inoculation into embryonic chicken eggs. Whole genome sequencing revealed greater than 99% homology with A/California/04/2009 (H1N1) that emerged in humans from swine in 2009. Analysis of more than 300 serum samples showed that samples collected early in 2010 (n = 100) were negative and by April animals began to test positive for antibodies against the pH1N1 virus (HI titer of ≥1:40), supporting the molecular findings. In vitro characterizations studies revealed that viral replication was indistinguishable from that of reference strains of pH1N1 in canine kidney cells, but replication was inefficient in human epithelial respiratory cells, indicating these isolates may be elephant seal adapted viruses. Thus findings confirmed that exposure to pandemic H1N1 that was circulating in people in 2009 occurred among free-ranging Northern Elephant Seals in 2010 off the central California coast. This is the first report of pH1N1 (A/Elephant seal/California/1/2010) in any marine mammal and provides evidence for cross species transmission of influenza viruses in free-ranging wildlife and movement of influenza viruses between humans and wildlife.

Citation: Goldstein T, Mena I, Anthony SJ, Medina R, Robinson PW, et al. (2013) Pandemic H1N1 Influenza Isolated from Free-Ranging Northern Elephant Seals in 2010 off the Central California Coast. PLoS ONE 8(5): e62259. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062259

Editor: Ian C. Davis, The Ohio State University, United States of America

Received: January 8, 2013; Accepted: March 19, 2013; Published: May 15, 2013

Copyright: ? 2013 Goldstein et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: Funding for this research was provided by CRIP (Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis), under the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) program supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (contract HHSN266200700009C), the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics program with grants from the National Ocean Partnership Program (N00014-02-1-1012), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-00-1-0880, N00014-03-1-0651 and N00014-08-1-1195), International Association of Oil and Gas Producers contract JIP2207-23, the Moore, Packard, and Sloan Foundations, and benefited from intellectual developments from the PREDICT project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats Program, CONICYT Insertion of Human Capital to the Academy grant (79100014) and by the Program Iniciativa Cient?fica Milenio from the Chilean Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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