Subject: shrimp[ virus-Taura syndrome

From: [email-masked] (Don Chen)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 04:31:50 GMT

Hi:

This post results from an article I read in the NYTimes last month on
a shrimp virus which was attacking Penaeus vannamei which were being
grown in hatcheries in Texas.  It has been identified as the same
agent which was responsible for shrimp deaths in Ecuador on the river,
Taura.  Lightner's group in Arizona and Brock's group in Hawaii have
been able to isolate a virus which, in H&E preps, produces multifocal
cuticular lesions and generally spherical cytoplasmic inclusion bodies
(1-20 um in diameter) (Dis.aquat.Org 21:53-59,1995).  The article goes
on to say that native shrimp of the Gulf Coast are not susceptible to
the disease. 

Questions: 
1.	Has the virus been identified as to type?
2.	Has the virus been shown to be specific to P. vannamei and not
other species?
3.	For those of you in the Gulf region, what are they going to do
with the carcasses of these shrimp?  They aren't going to grind them
up and feed them to other shrimp or other animals are they?
4.	Are there any environmental dependencies- ie temperature,
salinity, etc?

If there is anyone from either Lightner's or Brock's group reading
this, I'd be interested in corresponding with you.  My initial
interest was prompted by the thought it was a baculovirus, although
this doesn't seem to be the case.

Thanks, 
Don Chen
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Sleeping we image what awake we wish,
         Dogs dream of bones, fishermen of fish. -Theocritus
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