Evidence against GB virus C infection in dromedary camels

J.T. Stapleton, D.B. Smith, P. Simmonds

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

A recent publication described finding GB virus C (GBV-C) RNA in 4 of 22 dromedary camel sera, and sequence analysis found that these viruses were phylogenetically clustered within human GBV-C isolates. Since all other GB viruses to date form monophyletic groups according to their host species, the close relationship between the sequences generated from camel sera and human GBV-C isolates seemed implausible, leading us to conduct an independent analysis of the sequences. Our investigation found three lines of evidence arguing against GBV-C infection in dromedary camels. First, strong evidence of artifactual sequence generation was identified for some of the sequences. Secondly, the sequence diversity within individual camel sera was 10–152-fold greater than that described for GBV-C within a human host. Finally, GBV-C sequences generated from each camel shared near complete identity with human isolates previously described by the same laboratory. Taken together, these data strongly suggest laboratory contamination. We suggest that additional validation experiments are needed before it is possible to conclude that camels are permissive for GBV-C infection.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Pages (from-to)403-406
Number of pages4
JournalVeterinary Microbiology
Volume154
Issue number3-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • GB virus Flavirirus Dromedary camel

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