First isolation of largemouth bass virus

Abstract

The first reported fish kill caused by largemouth bass virus (LMBV) occurred in 1995 in Santee-Cooper Reservoir, South Carolina, USA. Subsequently, this iridovirus has been implicated in additional fish kills and has also been found in clinically healthy fish in numerous locations in the southeastern USA. We compared the virus from Santee-Cooper Reservoir with a virus isolated in 1991 from large-mouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, from Lake Weir, Florida. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms and the DNA sequence of a portion of the major capsid protein gene were identical for the South Carolina and Florida isolates. These results establish that LMBV was first found in Florida, rather than South Carolina. We propose that the name largemouth bass virus continue to be used for this virus, rather than alternative names based on geographical origin.