Mollusks as a natural reservoir of
morbilliviruses. Dokl Biol Sci.
Characterization of
morbilliviruses isolated from dolphins and porpoises in Europe.
Two
morbilliviruses implicated in bottlenose dolphin epizootics.
The immune suppression is not only observed during natural infections but also after vaccination with attenuated strains of
Morbilliviruses (Hussey et al.
Several strains of
morbilliviruses have been associated with illness and death in marine mammals (50).
This variation was previously reported in other related
morbilliviruses (13) and does not control any change in the tertiary structure of H antigen, as determined by using the SWISS-MODEL (http://swissmodel.
Recombinant
morbilliviruses (segmented or nonsegmented) containing unique rinderpest virus nucleic acid or amino acid sequences are considered to be rinderpest virus.
As more sequence data become available for PPRV and the other
morbilliviruses, ancestral origins of each virus and intraspecies differentiation might become more clear.
CeMV is more closely related to ruminant
morbilliviruses and human measles virus than to canine and phocine distemper viruses (1,2).
Serologic surveys indicate that
morbilliviruses infect marine mammals worldwide (5); however, only 1 fatal case in a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) has been confirmed in the Southern Hemisphere (in the southwestern Pacific Ocean) (6).
Three cetacean
morbilliviruses have been identified: porpoise morbillivirus, isolated from harbor porpoises that died along the coast of Ireland (6); dolphin morbillivirus (DMV), first identified in striped dolphins from the Mediterranean Sea (2); and pilot whale morbillivirus, isolated from a long-finned pilot whale stranded in New Jersey, USA (7).
Morbilliviruses can switch hosts, and new ecologic niches created by the eradication of rinderpest may provide opportunities for PPR emergence in new hosts (4,5).
