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Molecular epidemiology of betanodaviruses isolated from sea bass and sea bream cultured along the Tunisian coasts

Virus Genes volume 46, pages 412–422 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

Viral nervous necrosis (VNN) is a serious viral disease affecting farmed sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Only scarce molecular data are available on the disease-causing betanodavirus populations in Tunisia. Therefore, we carried out the first molecular survey of betanodaviruses in farmed sea bass and sea bream (Sparus aurata) along the Tunisian coasts. Among 81 samples from five farms, 20 tested positive with RT-PCR, not only in clinical cases but also in asymptomatic fish before and during outbreaks. Positive fish were found in all farms, except in one farm investigated in the south of Tunisia. Sequencing the fragments of both genomic components (RNA1 and RNA2) in 16 isolates revealed that the Tunisian viruses were related to the red-spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus (RGNNV) genotype. Furthermore, the newly sequenced isolates were generally highly related to one another suggesting a recent common ancestor. They also showed high identities with other isolates obtained from wild fishes in the Mediterranean, but were slightly more divergent from strains recently obtained from farmed fishes in the Mediterranean. The poor genetic diversity of the viral population along the Tunisian coasts is striking. One hypothesis is that it is the result of the maintenance of a homogenous genetic pool among infected wild fish, groupers for instance and subsequent dissemination to farmed fish over the seasons.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by an ADECIA Grant from the French Ministry of Agriculture and by the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture. The authors are grateful to fish farms for providing the samples.

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Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Virologie, Institut de la Recherche Vétérinaire de Tunisie, Université Tunis-El Manar, 20, rue Djebel Lakhdar-La Rabta, 1006, Tunis, Tunisia

    Sondès Haddad-Boubaker, Nadia Bouzgarou, Aida Megdich & Noureddine Ben Chéhida

  2. Unité de Pathologie Virale des Poissons, ANSES, Technopôle Brest-Iroise, Plouzané, France

    Laurent Bigarré, Marine Baud & Joëlle Cabon

Authors
  1. Sondès Haddad-Boubaker
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  2. Laurent Bigarré
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  3. Nadia Bouzgarou
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  4. Aida Megdich
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  5. Marine Baud
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  6. Joëlle Cabon
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  7. Noureddine Ben Chéhida
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Correspondence to Sondès Haddad-Boubaker.

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11262_2012_869_MOESM1_ESM.ppt

Fig. S1 Phylogenetic analysis of the 2011 Tunisian isolates based on the T4 RNA2 sequences. The evolutionary history was inferred by the Maximum-Likelihood method based on the Kimura 2-parameter model. The percentage of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (100 replicates) is shown next to the branches. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted in MEGA 5.1. Note: Sequences obtained in this study are in italic bold; asterisks indicates previously published Tunisian sequences. GenBank accession numbers for the supplementary 2005 Tunisian sequences are DQ 462313-DQ 462326 (Chérif et al. 2009). (PPT 191 kb)

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Haddad-Boubaker, S., Bigarré, L., Bouzgarou, N. et al. Molecular epidemiology of betanodaviruses isolated from sea bass and sea bream cultured along the Tunisian coasts. Virus Genes 46, 412–422 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-012-0869-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-012-0869-8

Keywords

  • Betanodavirus
  • Fish
  • Detection
  • Molecular characterization
  • Phylogeny