Humoral immune responses in seals infected by phocine distemper virus.

Recently the isolation and characterisation of a morbilli-virus which caused high mortality in common seals ( Phoca vitulina ) in 1988 have been reported. Because of the clinical and pathological similarity of the disease in seals to that of distemper in dogs, the name phocine distemper virus ( pdv ) has been proposed. There are marked differences in the virus-induced proteins of pdv compared to other morbilliviruses and the humoral immune response of moribund and dead seals to pdv was restricted to some of the internal antigens of pdv . similar to the response described earlier for canine distemper virus infection in dogs.