From the paper
Tissue samples were extracted in this way
How were external tumors moved from laser resection?
What are punch biopsies for non-external non-tumored areas?
What are necropsies right after euthanasia?
You see a turtle stranded on the beach in Northeastern Florida with visible tumors. What disease can you assume it may have?
FP with possibly activated ChHV5
Does ChHV5 behave like a normal cancer virus? Explain
FALSE
It is not highly active inside tumors. Many times, ChHV5 is quiet and harder to detect.
Described as “unusual viral dynamics.”
Definition of Fibropapillomatosis (FP)
What is a panzootic disease primarily affecting green sea turtles, characterized by cauliflower-like tumors (Can affect swimming, vision, feeding, and lead to death)?
List the three connections to One Health that this study has
Animal Health: What is threatening endangered turtles?
Environmental Health: What is virus sheds into seawater, causing environmental conditions to influence disease transmission and persistence?
Human-health connections: How do human-driven environmental change increase disease emergence and pathogen transmission in these wildlife systems?
Explain how eDNA was taken from tanks and why
What are water and sand eDNA samples to look at viral shedding dynamics within rehabilitation tanks, and why?
POV: You are sampling tank water with tumor-ridden sea turtles, and find viral DNA in the environment. How could you use your data to link viral levels to tumor burden in turtles?
Compare ChHV5 DNA concentrations in water with the number and size of tumors on each turtle.
You take a bucket of water from a turtle tank. What three things can it tell you?
1. any infected turtles
2. tumor severity
3. viral spread in an ecosystem
Define causative virus. Is FP or ChHV5 the causative virus in this situation?
What is a microorganism (pathogen) that directly induces disease by entering, infecting, and damaging host cells?
- ChHV5
How are ChHV5 and FP connected to other zoonotic viruses?
Human-wildlife conflict and intensive farming are causing zoonotic disease pandemics (Ebola, SARS, and COVID-19) from the transmission of animal viruses to humans. And vice versa, with humans causing the rise in cancer in wildlife.
90% of the leeches observed on FP tumors tested positive for ChHV5, and the authors discussed a reasoning that 3 did not
Did they have barely visible blood pellets?
POV: You run a turtle rescue center, and you just received a patient with large FP tumors. What precautions should you consider when treating and housing the patient?
1. Viral shedding ending up in outflow waters
2. Internal tumors
3. Abundance of ChHRV5 within the FP
What part/fact did you find most interesting about the paper?
contestants answer
Define Chronic Debilitation
What is a long-term, progressive loss of physical strengths, causes a turtle to be immunocompromised, turtle is overrun with parasitic diseases such as barnacles and leeches?
How will future eDNA-based quantitative viral shedding monitoring help with the understanding of One Health concepts?
It will help to better understand this wildlife epizootic and address unresolved questions relating to viral shedding for other animal and human pathogen-induced cancers.
Larger tumors shed more ChHV5 because they contain more lytic ChHV5
True or false (give reasoning)
FALSE: Larger tumors shed more ChHV5 (by virtue of their cumulative size, not because they contain more lytic ChHV5 per unit area than new growth tumors)
POV: You are a Vet examining a turtle with severe FP and preparing it for tumor removal surgery. What signs would help you estimate the turtle’s tumor burden, and how might tumor removal affect viral shedding into the environment?
1. Number, size, and location of tumors on and inside the body.
2. It would most likely reduce ChHV5 shedding into the water because tumors were found to be a major viral source.
Could disease monitoring start before visible tumors appear?
TRUE!
eDNA can detect viral presence in the environment and could possibly flag disease risk before turtles show visible tumors.
Define oncogenesis
what is the multi-step process by which healthy cells transform into cancer cells, driven by genetic mutations?
What does the future of One Health look like in this article and future monitoring?
Points to more integrated, ecosystem-wide disease monitoring: emphasize eDNA, ecosystem stressors, and connection to disease outbreaks, habitat protection, etc.
What is a hit-and-run hypothesis, and does it apply here?
Hit-and-run hypothesis: certain viruses initiate cancer or chronic diseases by causing initial genetic damage (the "hit"), but are not required to maintain the diseased state and can subsequently disappear (the "run")
It DOES NOT apply to FP tumors
POV: You are sequencing biopsied tumor tissue and find that ChHV5 is mostly latent. What does it mean for a virus to be latent inside a tumor, and what does it tell us that the virus is found in early-stage and regrowth tumors?
1. The virus is present but not actively replicating or producing many new viral particles.
2. It shows the virus is present throughout disease progression, not just in advanced stages.
What's your favorite turtle and why?
Hosts choice
The full scientific name for ChHV5
What is Chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5?
What was the One Health Article Alexis sent out this morning about?
The Hantavirus infections on cruise ship