Ljungan Virus Detected in Bank Voles (Myodes glareolus) and Yellow-Necked Mice (Apodemus flavicollis) from Northern Italy

• Published in: Journal of wildlife diseases Vol. 46; no. 1; pp. 262 - 266
• Main Authors: Hauffe, Heidi C, Niklasson, Bo, Olsson, Therese, Bianchi, Alessandro, Rizzoli, Annapaola, Klitz, William
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wildlife Disease Association 01.01.2010; Wildlife Dis Assoc
• Subjects: Animals; Animals, Wild - virology; Apodemus flavicollis; Arvicolinae; Arvicolinae - virology; disease detection; Disease Reservoirs - veterinary; Disease Reservoirs - virology; Female; insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus; Italy - epidemiology; Ljungan virus; Male; molecular sequence data; Murinae - virology; myocarditis; Myodes glareolus; northern Italy; nucleotide sequences; Parechovirus - isolation & purification; PCR; Picornaviridae; Picornaviridae Infections - epidemiology; Picornaviridae Infections - veterinary; reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction - veterinary; sequence analysis; SHORT COMMUNICATIONS; Species Specificity; type 1 diabetes; VETERINARY MEDICINE; VETERINÄRMEDICIN; viral diseases of animals and humans; wildlife diseases; Italy
• ISSN: 0090-3558; 1943-3700; 1943-3700
• DOI: 10.7589/0090-3558-46.1.262

Identified in 1998, Ljungan virus (LV; Picornaviridae) causes type 1 diabetes–like symptoms and myocarditis in bank voles (Myodes glareolus) from Sweden and Denmark, and may be a zoonotic agent of several important diseases (e.g., intrauterine fetal death, type 1 diabetes, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and myocarditis). Using a real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction assay and sequence analysis, we detected LV in bank voles, and for the first time, in yellow-necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) collected during 2006 from a site in northern Italy. The global distribution of LV and its role as a mammalian pathogen deserve further attention.