In 2011 in front of running cameras, Knut drowned after he suffered epileptic seizures and fell into the enclosure’s pool. Pathological analyses revealed that Knut suffered encephalitis which caused the seizures1. An exceptionally extensive investigation for infectious causes for a single animal failed to demonstrate a bacterial, viral or parasitic cause for the encephalitis. Highly detailed pathological investigations, histology, extensive serology, thirty five pan-PCR assays, two pathogen microarray systems, and shotgun sequencing on both the GSF FLX and Illumina HiSeq systems only revealed a serological response to influenza A and a novel endogenous retroviral group, neither of which would have been responsible for Knut’s symptoms1,2. Thus, a diagnosis of “encephalitis of unknown etiology” was established.
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