%0 Journal Article
%T Immunohistochemical detection of piscine reovirus (PRV) in hearts of Atlantic salmon coincide with the course of heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI)
%A £¿ystein Finstad
%A Knut Falk
%A Marie L£¿voll
%A £¿ystein Evensen
%A Espen Rimstad
%J Veterinary Research
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1297-9716-43-27
%X Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector in the world, and fish farming will be a key contributor to meet the growing demand for animal proteins [1]. However, intensive production, including rearing fish in dense populations, has led to the emergence of several new infectious diseases. Heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI), first detected in 1999, is an increasingly important disease in farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) [2]. HSMI usually occurs 5-9 months after transfer of the fish to seawater, and is characterized by epi-, endo- and myocarditis, myocardial necrosis, myositis and necrosis of the red skeletal muscle [2,3]. The cumulative mortality may reach 20%, but the morbidity is higher as most fish in an affected sea cage show histopathological lesions in the heart [4]. Pathological changes in the heart are also seen in other diseases in Atlantic salmon, including pancreas disease (PD) and cardiomyopathy syndrome (CMS) [5-8].HSMI was recently found to be associated with a novel reovirus, piscine reovirus (PRV). The virus genome was identified using high throughput sequencing. Cultivation of PRV in commonly used fish cell lines has not been successful so far. The load of PRV, as measured by RT-qPCR, correlates with disease development in both naturally and experimentally infected salmon [9]. However, PRV is found to be ubiquitously distributed in healthy farmed Atlantic salmon, although at a much lower level than in diseased fish. PRV is also found in low quantities in wild Atlantic salmon [9].The PRV belongs to the family Reoviridae, but it has not yet been classified at genus level. Phylogenetic analysis of derived amino acid sequences of the open reading frames of each genome segment indicated that PRV branches off the common root of the orthoreovirus and aquareovirus genera [9]. Like the orthoreoviruses, PRV contains 10 dsRNA genome segments, while aquareoviruses have 11 segments [10]. Based on sequence homologies the annotation o
%U http://www.veterinaryresearch.org/content/43/1/27