Abolishment of spawner-isolated mortality virus and where the remaining science leads
Leigh Owens- Virology
In the late 1980s, there was histological and electron microscopy evidence for a parvovirus-like virus in Australian prawns. The data were consistent with infectious hypodermal and haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV). However, these cases did not fit the then current paradigms of the known viruses and sequencing did not find any meaningful sequence homology. The virus was named spawner-isolated mortality virus (SMV; GenBank AF499102.1) in order to allow publication of the information about its occurrence to inform the scientific and aquacultural communities. This virus was present in the early years of mid-crop mortality syndrome (1993–1995). However, as time passed, nucleotide and protein databases have expanded and sequence investigation tools have become more cost effective. The sequence of the entity known as SMV is now shown to be of