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Volume 31, Number 11—November 2025

Dispatch

Novel Dolphin Tupavirus from Stranded Atlantic White-Sided Dolphin with Severe Encephalitis, Canada, 2024

Oksana Vernygora1, Laura Bourque1, Megan Jones, Ole Nielsen, Carissa Embury-Hyatt, Estella Moffat, Tonya Wimmer, and Oliver LungComments to Author 
Author affiliation: National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (O. Vernygora, C. Embury-Hyatt, E. Moffat, O. Lung); Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Atlantic Region, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada (L. Bourque, M. Jones); Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Winnipeg (O. Nielsen); Marine Animal Response Society, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (T. Wimmer); University of Manitoba, Winnipeg (O. Lung)

Main Article

Table

Characteristics of highly divergent novel dolphin tupavirus protein sequences from the brain of a stranded dead Atlantic white-sided dolphin with severe encephalitis, Canada*

 Nucleotide
 Amino acid
Protein Top match by BLASTn % Identity Top match by DELTA-BLAST % Identity
Nucleocapsid Wufeng Rhinolophus pearsonii tupavirus 1 (GenBank accession no. MZ328291.1) 68.54 Wufeng bat tupavirus 2 (GenBank accession no. WPV62772.1) 54.88
Phosphoprotein NA NA Wufeng Rhinolophus pearsonii tupavirus 1 (GenBank accession no. UBB42388.1) 17.55
Matrix protein NA NA Bat tupavirus CX1 (GenBank accession no. WGC86350.1) 32.68
SH protein NA NA Durham virus (GenBank accession no. ADB88762) 33.33
Glycoprotein NA NA Wufeng bat tupavirus 2 (GenBank accession no. WPV62776.1) 30.62
Polymerase Wenzhou Myotis laniger tupavirus 1 (GenBank accession no. OM030290.1) 55.42 Klamath virus (GenBank accession no. AJR28401.1) 55.36

*Percentage amino acid identity for the SH protein was calculated by aligning it to the SH from Durham virus, the closest tupavirus to DTV, using a BLASTp algorithm (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). SH proteins have very low identity among the members of the genus (7,8). NA, not applicable; SH, small hydrophobic protein.

Main Article

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1These authors contributed equally to this article.

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