Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. Caliciviruses are associated with several disease symptoms, such as diarrhea, respiratory infections, vesicular lesions, reproductive failure, and fatal hemorrhagic disease in animals. Novel disease-causing caliciviruses continue to be discovered in mammals.
Through a metagenomics approach, a novel calicivirus was identified and genetically characterized in swab samples from the noses, throats, and anuses of walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) with diarrhea in Qingdao Polar Haichang Ocean Park, China, between April and December 2018.
The genomic sequence of the novel walrus calicivirus CV-HMU-1 was 7,172 nt long and included two complete open reading frames (ORFs) encoding classical calicivirus NS protein amino acid motifs. Phylogenetic analysis based on amino acid sequences including viral protein 1 (VP1) and viral protein 2 (VP2) from representatives of 11 known genera confirmed that CV-HMU-1 is a new member of the Salovirus genus of the Caliciviridae family. The non-structural (NS) CV-HMU-1 shared 75.68% and 64.68% amino acid identity with Atlantic salmon calicivirus and Ameiurus nebulosus calicivirus 1, respectively, which are also Salovirus species. However, further research is needed to verify the direct link between CV-HMU-1 and diarrhea.
CV-HMU-1 is proposed as a novel Caliciviridae species. These findings not only expand virological classification but also indicate evolutionary links in calicivirus transmission between terrestrial and marine mammal hosts.
Read more: https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/ZOONOSES-2025-0002
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eISSN 2737-7474
ISSN 2737-7466
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Yi Huang, Zihan Li and Dan Ren et al. Identification of a Novel Calicivirus in Walrus (Odobenus Rosmarus). Zoonoses. 2025. Vol. 5(1). DOI: 10.15212/ZOONOSES-2025-0002