Identification of novel simian endogenous retroviruses that are indistinguishable from simian retrovirus (SRV) on current SRV diagnostic assays.

Simian betaretroviruses include the well-known exogenous simian retroviruses (SRV-1 through SRV-8), and some closely related simian endogenous retroviruses (SERV). Here, we characterized two new viral genomes, which appear to represent novel SERVs but have characteristics of both SRV and SERV highlighting the need to develop new assays providing molecular and serologic differentiation of SERV and SRV to avoid false positives.

Emerging diagnostic challenges and characteristics of simian betaretrovirus infections in captive macaque colonies.

To better understand Simian betaretrovirus (SRV) seropositivity in virus-negative macaques, we transfused blood from SRV-infected or suspect donors into immunosuppressed naive recipients. Our results do not support typical SRV1-5 infection as the cause, but provide evidence for several possibilities including serological artifact, new/different SRV, or an endogenous virus.

Diverse contexts of zoonotic transmission of simian foamy viruses in Asia.

In Asia, contact between persons and nonhuman primates is widespread in multiple occupational and nonoccupational contexts. Simian foamy viruses (SFVs) are retroviruses that are prevalent in all species of nonhuman primates. To determine SFV prevalence in humans, we tested 305 persons who lived or worked around nonhuman primates in several South and Southeast Asian countries; 8 (2.

Prevalence of enzootic simian viruses among urban performance monkeys in Indonesia.

Animal reservoirs are the most important sources of emerging infectious diseases that threaten human populations. Global travel and tourism bring ever-increasing numbers of humans into contact with animals, increasing the likelihood of cross species transmission of infectious agents. Non-human primates come into contact with humans in a variety of contexts and may harbor infectious agents with zoonotic potential.

Development of a whole-virus multiplex flow cytometric assay for antibody screening of a specific pathogen-free primate colony.

Our goal was to determine if a multiplex technique using a fluorescent bead-based flow cytometric assay could yield results comparable to traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in terms of sensitivity, specificity, cross-reactivity, and throughput. We applied both techniques to serologic screening of specific pathogen-free macaques, for type D simian retrovirus, simian T-lymphotropic virus, Cercopithicine herpesvirus 1, and simian immunodeficiency virus, and found a high correlation between the bead-based multiplex assay and ELISA. The multiplex assay demonstrated greater sensitivity with no loss in specificity when compared to the ELISA.