Potential harmful effects of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus in mammals

Most of the emerging diseases that threaten humans are caused by RNA viruses which are extremely mutable during evolution. The fish RNA virus, viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) can infect a broad range of aquatic animal hosts, but the transmissibility of VHSV to mammals has not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the potential adverse effects of VHSV in mammals. Briefly, the survival of VHSV was determined using only minimum essential media (MEM-2) and mammalian SNU-1411 and hepa-1c1c7s cells at 15℃ and 37℃. Mice (Mus musculus, 27.3 ± 1.9 g) were intravenously injected with VHSV (2.37E+05 TCID₅₀·mice^-1) in triplicate. Clinical signs and survival rates were examined at 14 days post-challenge, and infection was confirmed in the surviving mice. The 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID₅₀) and polymerase chain reaction analysis were used to determine viral titers and the infection rate, respectively. The titer of VHSV suspended in MEM-2 at 15℃ was reduced by only one log after 8 days, whereas the virus maintained at 37℃ was inactivated 8 days post-inoculation (dpi). There were no recognizable cytopathic effects in either SNU-1411 or hepa-1c1c7s cells inoculated with VHSV at 15℃ and 37℃. VHSV in those cell lines at 37℃ was rapidly decreased and eventually inactivated at 12 dpi, whereas virus at 15℃ remained at low concentrations without replication. In vivo experiment showed that there were no signs of disease, mortality, or infection in VHSV-infected mice. The results of this study indicate that it is highly unlikely that VHSV can infect mammals including humans.