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149651 - Diagnostic Uncertainty and the Epidemiology of Feline Foamy Virus in Pumas.pdf (1.09 MB)

Diagnostic uncertainty and the epidemiology of feline foamy virus in pumas (Puma concolor)

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posted on 2023-05-21, 07:01 authored by Dannemiller, NG, Kechejian, S, Kraberger, S, Logan, K, Alldredge, M, Crooks, KR, VandeWoude, S, Scott CarverScott Carver
Feline foamy virus (FFV) is a contact-dependent retrovirus forming chronic, largely apathogenic, infections in domestic and wild felid populations worldwide. Given there is no current 'gold standard' diagnostic test for FFV, efforts to elucidate the ecology and epidemiology of the virus may be complicated by unknown sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests. Using Bayesian Latent Class Analysis, we estimated the sensitivity and specificity of the only two FFV diagnostic tests available-ELISA and qPCR-as well as the prevalence of FFV in a large cohort of pumas from Colorado. We evaluated the diagnostic agreement of ELISA and qPCR, and whether differences in their diagnostic accuracy impacted risk factor analyses for FFV infection. Our results suggest ELISA and qPCR did not have strong diagnostic agreement, despite FFV causing a persistent infection. While both tests had similar sensitivity, ELISA had higher specificity. ELISA, but not qPCR, identified age to be a significant risk factor, whereas neither qPCR nor ELISA identified sex to be a risk factor. This suggests FFV transmission in pumas may primarily be via non-antagonistic, social interactions between adult conspecifics. Our study highlights that combined use of qPCR and ELISA for FFV may enhance estimates of the true prevalence of FFV and epidemiological inferences.

Funding

National Science Foundation

History

Publication title

Scientific Reports

Volume

10

Article number

1587

Number

1587

ISSN

2045-2322

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.) which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Control of pests, diseases and exotic species in terrestrial environments

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