Skip to main content
Log in

Isolation and molecular characterization of equine H3N8 influenza viruses from pigs in China

  • Brief Report
  • Published:
Archives of Virology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

During 2004–2006 swine influenza virus surveillance, two strains of H3N8 influenza viruses were isolated from pigs in central China. Sequence and phylogenetic analyses of eight gene segments revealed that the two swine isolates were of equine origin and most closely related to European equine H3N8 influenza viruses from the early 1990s. Comparison of hemagglutinin (HA) amino acid sequences showed several important substitutions. One substitution caused the loss of a potential glycosylation site, and two substitutions, located at the cleavage site and adjacent to the receptor-binding pocket, respectively, had been reported previously in canine H3 HAs. This expansion of host range of equine H3N8 influenza viruses with mutations in the HA protein might raise the possibility of transmission of these viruses to humans.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

References

  1. Crawford PC, Dubovi EJ, Castleman WL et al (2005) Transmission of equine influenza virus to dogs. Science 310:482–485

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Daly JM, Blunden AS, Macrae S et al (2008) Transmission of equine influenza virus to English foxhounds. Emerg Infect Dis 14:461–464

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Guo Y, Wang M, Zheng GS, Li WK, Kawaoka Y, Webster RG (1995) Seroepidemiological and molecular evidence for the presence of two H3N8 equine influenza viruses in China in 1993–94. J Gen Virol 76:2009–2014

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hoffmann E, Stech J, Guan Y, Webster RG, Perez DR (2001) Universal primer set for the full-length amplification of all influenza A viruses. Arch Virol 146:2275–2289

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Jeffrey M, Kristy JS, Konrad CB et al (2008) Infectivity studies of influenza virus hemagglutinin receptor binding site mutants in mice. J Virol 82:5079–5083

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Payungporn S, Crawford PC, Kouo TS, Chen LM, Pompey J, Castleman WL (2008) Influenza A virus (H3N8) in dogs with respiratory disease, Florida. Emerg Infect Dis 14:902–908

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Plotkin JB, Dushoff J (2003) Codon bias and frequency-dependent selection on the hemagglutinin epitopes of influenza A virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:7152–71577

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Waddell GH, Teigland MB, Sigel MM (1963) A new influenza virus associated with equine respiratory disease. J Am Vet Med Assoc 143:587–590

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Wang Q, Tian X, Chen X, Ma J (2007) Structural basis for receptor specificity of influenza B virus hemagglutinin. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:16874–16879

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Yu H, Zhou YJ, Li GY, Zhang GH, et al. (2008) Further evidence for infection of pigs with human-like H1N1 influenza viruses in China. Virus Res. doi:10.1016/j.virusres.2008.11.008

  11. Zhou H, Jin M, Chen H, Huang Q, Yu Z (2006) Genome-sequence analysis of the pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza A virus isolated in China in 2004. Virus Genes 32:85–95

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by China National Basic Research Program (China “973” Program 2005CB523003), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30800832) and China National Scientific and Technical Supporting Programs (No. 2006BAD06A11 and No. 2006BAD06A15). We thank Miss Xiao Xiao for critically reading the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Meilin Jin.

Additional information

J. Tu and H. Zhou contributed equally to the work.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tu, J., Zhou, H., Jiang, T. et al. Isolation and molecular characterization of equine H3N8 influenza viruses from pigs in China. Arch Virol 154, 887–890 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-009-0381-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-009-0381-1

Keywords

Navigation