Scientists discover first jeilongvirus in the U.S., thanks to a cat
On a warm May day, an all-black domestic shorthair cat named Pepper entered his Gainesville, Florida, home and dropped a dead mouse on the carpet at his owner’s feet.
There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about Pepper’s behavior; he’s a skilled hunter who regularly leaves “gifts” for his humans. But Pepper’s owner had a different response than most of us. He’s John Lednicky, Ph.D., an expert in viruses and their transmission, including across species. Suspecting that mice may carry mule deerpox, Lednicky scooped up Pepper’s trophy and took it to his University of Florida lab for testing.
There, Lednicky and his team discovered that the rodent, a common cotton mouse, did not carry deerpox virus, but it did harbor a jeilongvirus, previously found in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. It comes from a family of viruses that infect mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish, and can occasionally cause serious illness in humans.