My Dear Sukie Crandall . . . Hello, I've not forgotten you from back
ON Dec 30, when I posed the following. You have not answered any of my
questions but I hope you will give me further consideration this date,
the 5th of Jan. '09.

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Hi Sukie Crandall, Edward Velcro Lipinski here with a question(s) for
you, namely,

1.) Has ECE ever been inoculated into an otherwise certified healthy
ferret OUTSIDE of a population of already infected ferrets?...

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Below Dear Sukie is an excerpt from your wonderful posting of Dec 31,
Issue No. 6199. I don't want to appear less than grateful for the
paragraph below, but really, Dear Sukie, to me and to others on the
FML, this paragraph is . . . well, I must say it, its a bunch of
gobbilie-gook, clap-trap, obfucation and adds not a whit of an answer
to any of my questions. Be that I abuse your sensitivity, I apologize
for that.

Believe me, Dear Sukie, I'd be most grateful if you could assume the
role of a medical technical writer and translate the obscure vet/med
citations and abstracts you cite down to the reading/comprehensive
level of an 8th grader . . . you know, down to my lower level and
perhaps to others' level as well.

As you may already know, answers to questions nurture fertile minds
to prompt new questions that are based on the answers to previous
questions. Questions/answers . . . questions/answers. Is this not how
we learn, at least some of us?

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A novel coronavirus, designated as ferret enteric coronavirus (FECV),
was identified in feces of domestic ferrets clinically diagnosed with
epizootic catarrhal enteritis (ECE). Initially, partial sequences of
the polymerase, spike, membrane protein, and nucleocapsid genes were
generated using coronavirus consensus PCR assays. Subsequently, the
complete sequences of the nucleocapsid gene and the last two open
reading frames at the 3' terminus of the FECV genome were obtained.
Phylogenetic analyses based on predicted partial amino acid sequences
of the polymerase, spike, and membrane proteins, and full sequence of
the nucleocapsid protein showed that FECV is genetically most closely
related to group 1 coronaviruses. FECV is more similar to feline
coronavirus, porcine transmissible gastroenteritis virus, and canine
coronavirus than to porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and human
coronavirus 229E. Molecular data presented in this study provide the
first genetic evidence for a new coronavirus associated with clinical
cases of ECE.

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Edward Lipinski

Suus cuique mos  (Latin: Every one of us has his own peculiar way.)

[Posted in FML 6206]