Ball Python Nidovirus: a Candidate Etiologic Agent for Severe Respiratory Disease in Python regius

Stenglein, Mark D.; Jacobson, Elliott R.; Wozniak, Edward J.; Wellehan, James F. X.; Kincaid, Anne; Gordon, Marcus; Porter, Brian F.; Baumgartner, Wes; Stahl, Scott; Kelley, Karen; Towner, Jonathan S.; DeRisi, Joseph L.

In addition to disease causality, a number of questions related to the biology of ball python nidovirus and to the epidemiology and natural history of this disease remain open. The precise host range of this virus remains undefined. It is not clear that ball pythons are the primary natural host for this virus, nor whether it can replicate or cause disease in other snakes, other reptiles, or other animals. The routes of transmission for this virus remain unknown. Additionally, the prevalence of this disease is yet to be determined, although it is apparently widespread, since cases were collected from geographically disparate locations in the United States from 2006 to 2013. Additional studies will help to answer these central questions and uncover additional details about the biology of this putative pathogen. The current study is another example where the application of genomic techniques to the study of infectious disease in reptiles and other less well studied organisms has identified new and unexpected relatives of human pathogens (59, 70) .