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Researchers at the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, and the Turtle Hospital, Marathon, Florida, have previously demonstrated, via transmission studies, that green turtle fibropapillomatosis (GTFP) is caused by an infectious subcellular agent, most likely an enveloped virus. However no virus has yet been isolated from tumours and shown to be the aetiologic agent. In 1996, the UF team reported discovery of a novel herpesvirus in GTFP using a PCR test (Herbst et al. in press). Using the PCR test, the team now has accumulated evidence that this herpesvirus is demonstrably present in more than 95% of the fibropapillomas (FP's) of green and loggerhead sea turtles in Florida, as well as in fibropapillomas of green turtles in Hawaii.

The FP-associated virus is genetically similar to human herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 and varicella zoster virus. Although most animals may harbour all kinds of viruses in our body at any one time, most of these viruses are harmless. Some animals may harbour viruses in tumours that are irrelevant; this has been shown in other diseases. Is this virus the cause of the disease or just growing in the tumour? Research groups at UF, the Retrovirology Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii and the National Wildlife Disease Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, are working to isolate the virus so it can be tested in transmission studies.

These new developments at the UF, including the first documentation of the occurrence of a virtually identical herpesvirus in the fibropapillomas of loggerhead turtles are to be presented at the International Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology in Mazatlan, Mexico in March (Lackovich et al. in prep.).

Acknowledgements: UF research has been supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratory, Save-A Turtle of Islamorada and the Hidden Harbor Marine Environmental Project, Inc., in Marathon. UF's research team includes Paul Klein, Elliott Jacobson, Ritchie Moretti, Joel Lackovich, Dan Brown, Sadie Curry, and Larry Herbst who is now with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

HERBST, L.H., L. LOCKWOOD, R. GARBER & P.A. KLEIN. (in press). Molecular biological evidence for the involvement of a unique herpesvirus in the aetiology of green turtle fibropapillomatosis. Proceedings of the 16th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, February 28-March 2, 1996, Hilton Head, South Carolina.

LACKOVICH, J., D. BROWN, B.L. HOMER, R.L. GARBER, D. MADER, R. MORETTI, A. PATTERSON, L.H. HERBST, J. OROS, E. JACOBSON & P.A. KLEIN (in prep.). Association of a chelonid herpesvirus with fibropapillomas of the green turtle, Chelonia mydas and the loggerhead turtle, Caretta caretta. Proceedings of the 18th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, March 3-8, 1998, Mazatlan, Mexico.