Honors Theses and Capstones
Date Completed
Spring 2026
Abstract
Caliciviridae is a family of non-enveloped, positive-sense, single stranded RNA viruses, including eleven defined genera that contain important pathogens of humans and animals. Within the Caliciviridae family, the genus Vesiviridae includes feline calicivirus, a leading cause of upper respiratory disease in cats, and vesicular exanthema of swine virus, a historical disease of domestic swine that has now been implicated in several marine mammal vesicular diseases, one of which has been confirmed zoonotic. Urban landscapes create a unique environment for rapid intra- and interspecies transmission of viruses. Clustered resources attract high-density populations of synanthropic wildlife species, increasing spatial overlap and heightening the risk of disease transmission between human and animal hosts. In 2023, shotgun metatranscriptomics revealed a novel vesivirus in a striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) that was found deceased in a New York City park. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of this novel vesivirus in northeastern United States (US) striped skunk populations between 2019 and 2025 through reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of lung, liver, and fecal swabs. Due to the high transmissibility of caliciviruses, it was hypothesized that several positive results would be obtained. Ultimately, no vesiviruses were detected during this study, suggesting that the novel vesivirus may not have been present in northeastern US during this period. However, experimental limitations warrant further investigation, and these negative results could alternatively offer insight into possible variation of the PCR target sequence in this novel pathogen’s genome.
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
First Advisor
David Needle
Second Advisor
Megan Enos-Fournier
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
College or School
COLSA
Department or Program
Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Recommended Citation
Diggins, Amanda E., "Surveillance of a Novel Vesivirus Discovered in an Urban Mephitis mephitis Population" (2026). Honors Theses and Capstones. 946.
https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/946
Included in
Animal Diseases Commons, Animals Commons, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons, Other Animal Sciences Commons, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons, Pathogenic Microbiology Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons, Veterinary Infectious Diseases Commons, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology Commons, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology Commons, Veterinary Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health Commons, Virology Commons, Virus Diseases Commons, Viruses Commons