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Background 2: AMDV-Related Parvoviruses in Wild vs. Farmed Carnivores
Infection with AMDV—or related amdoparvoviruses—is widespread in both wild and farmed mink. Related viruses have also been identified in several other carnivore species, including gray foxes, skunks, raccoon dogs, and red pandas. However, relatively little is known about amdoparvovirus infection biology in the natural environment or the broader distribution of these infections in wild species.
Carnivores, parvoviruses, and the fur trade
Left to right:
Gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus);
Striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis);
Raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides);
Red panda (Ailurus fulgens).
Most importantly, it is unclear whether the pathology of AD in captive mink is typical of disease in the wild, or if factors associated with fur farming have enabled the disease's emergence.
With the increased availability of molecular sequence data, it may now be feasible to gain insights into the natural history and evolution of amdoparvoviruses, potentially shedding light on the emergence of AD.
In this tutorial, we will use the Parvovirus-GLUE project and published sequence data to investigate the distribution, diversity, and evolution of AMDV.
To download all AMDV entries in NCBI GenBank, we will use a customized version of GLUE's ncbiImporter module. The project-specific configuration of this module can be viewed here. The module is configured to download sequences based on the following query phrase:
"Carnivore amdoparvovirus 1"[Organism] AND 200:5000[SLEN]
This eSearchTerm is a standard NCBI Entrez text query that specifies all GenBank entries labeled "Carnivore amdoparvovirus 1" in the 'Organism' field and with lengths between 200 and 5000 nucleotides (nt).
To use the module, initiate GLUE on the command line as follows:
Parvovirus-GLUE by Robert J Gifford Lab.
For questions, issues, or feedback, please open an issue on the GitHub repository.