Bandicoot papillomatosis carcinomatosis virus is a circular double-stranded DNA

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...

isolated from bandicoots (''

Perameles bougainville The Western barred bandicoot (''Perameles bougainville''), also known as the Marl, is a small species of bandicoot; now extinct across most of its former range, the western barred bandicoot only survives on offshore islands and in fenced sanctuar ...

''). The genome has features similar to viruses in the families ''

Papillomaviridae ''Papillomaviridae'' is a family of non- enveloped DNA viruses whose members are known as papillomaviruses. Several hundred species of papillomaviruses, traditionally referred to as "types", have been identified infecting all carefully inspected ...

'' and the ''

Polyomaviridae ''Polyomaviridae'' is a family of viruses whose natural hosts are primarily mammals and birds. As of 2020, there are six recognized genera and 117 species, five of which are unassigned to a genus. 14 species are known to infect humans, while othe ...

''. Two species have been described to date.Bennett MD, Woolford L, Stevens H, Van Ranst M, Oldfield T, Slaven M, O'Hara AJ, Warren KS, Nicholls PK (2008) Genomic characterization of a novel virus found in papillomatous lesions from a southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) in Western Australia. Virology 376(1):173-182

Genome

The genome is ~7.5 kilobases in length with a G+C content of ~35%. Two structural genes are present: L1 and L2. The non structural genes are found on the opposite strand. The L1 gene encodes a protein with 506 residues and the L2 encodes a protein with 470 residues. The two non structural genes T (742 amino acid residues) and t (224 amino acid residues). The structural proteins resemble those of the papillomaviruses while the T and t antigens resemble those of the polyomaviruses.

Evolution

These viruses evolved via a recombination event between a papillomavirus and a polyomavirus between and .Bennett MD, Reiss A, Stevens H, Heylen E, Van Ranst M, Wayne A, Slaven M, Mills JN, Warren KS, O'Hara AJ, Nicholls PK (2010) The first complete papillomavirus genome characterized from a marsupial host: a novel isolate from ''Bettongia penicillata''. J Virol 84(10):5448-5453

Clinical

These viruses were isolated from and are thought to cause a progressively debilitating cutaneous and mucocutaneous papillomatosis and carcinomatosis syndrome.Woolford L, Rector A, Van Ranst M, Ducki A, Bennett MD, Nicholls PK, Warren KS, Swan RA, Wilcox GE, O'Hara AJ (2007) A novel virus detected in papillomas and carcinomas of the endangered western barred bandicoot (Perameles bougainville) exhibits genomic features of both the Papillomaviridae and Polyomaviridae. J Virol 81(24):13280-13290 The lesions that occur in this disease are irregular thickenings and masses over the skin of the digits, body, pouch, and mucocutaneous junctions of the lips and conjunctiva. Cases have been described in both captive and wild individuals.

References

{{Baltimore classification Double-stranded DNA viruses