Identification of a Second Raccoon-Associated Polyomavirus

Eileen M Geoghegan; Nicole L Welch; Michael J Yabsley; Molly E Church; Patricia A Pesavento; Christopher B Buck

doi:10.1128/genomeA.00548-17

Identification of a Second Raccoon-Associated Polyomavirus

Genome Announc. 2017 Jun 29;5(26):e00548-17. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.00548-17.

Authors

Eileen M Geoghegan¹, Nicole L Welch¹, Michael J Yabsley², Molly E Church³, Patricia A Pesavento⁴, Christopher B Buck⁵

Affiliations

¹ Lab of Cellular Oncology, CCR, NCI, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
² Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, Department of Population Health, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
³ School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
⁴ Department of Pathology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Davis, California, USA.
⁵ Lab of Cellular Oncology, CCR, NCI, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA buckc@mail.nih.gov.

Abstract

Raccoon polyomavirus 1 (RacPyV1) is the suspected cause of an outbreak of fatal brain tumors among raccoons (Procyon lotor) in the western United States. Spleen samples from Georgia raccoons were screened for polyomaviruses. Although RacPyV1 was not detected, a previously unknown polyomavirus, which we designate RacPyV2, was identified and sequenced.