Adenoviral hepatitis in a SIV-infected rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta).

BACKGROUND: A 5-year-old female rhesus monkey infected with simian immunodeficiency virus became clinically suspicious with anorexia, increasing weakness and apathy eighty-five weeks after the tonsillar virus inoculation and was euthanised due to a poor prognosis. METHODS AND RESULTS: Postmortal examinations revealed a severe multifocal to coalescing necotizing hepatitis with numerous intranuclear basophilic inclusion bodies. Transmission electron microscopy of the liver resulted in the finding of adenovirus like particles arranged in paracrystalline arrays within the nuclei of hepatocytes. CONCLUSION: The SIV infected rhesus monkey suffered from an adenovirus included necortizing hepatitis, an extremely rare organ manifestation of adenovirus infection in nonhuman primates.