White spot syndrome virus in cultured shrimp:: A review

Shrimp is one of the main aquaculture species in the world. Different viruses affect them, which causes serious mortality to economically important species, such as Penaeus monodon, Litopenaeus vannamei and L. stylirostris, among others. White spot syndrome virus or WSSV is a highly lethal, stress-dependent virus, which belongs to the family Nimaviridae, genus Whispovirus. Three WSSV virus isolates were first detected in 1992 in Thailand, Taiwan and China. Later, a fourth isolate of the virus was detected in the Americas in 1999. This virus has a large circular double-stranded DNA genome with different sizes (292.9-307.2 kb), where the diverse isolates show differences in virulence. This virus infects a wide range of aquatic crustaceans by vertical and horizontal transmission, with different mortality results. The spread of infection between regions may be due to infected shrimp and carriers such as other crustaceans, seabirds, aquatic arthropods or other vectors. The aim of this work is to describe the current knowledge on the status, transmission, pathology, isolation, control and genomic characteristics of WSSV.