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Genome Characteristics and Evolution of Pseudorabies Virus Strains in Eastern China from 2017 to 2019

Virologica Sinica volume 34, pages 601–609 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Since late 2011, outbreaks of pseudorabies virus (PRV) have occurred in southern China causing major economic losses to the pig industry. We previously reported that variant PRV forms and recombination in China could be the source of continued epidemics. Here, we analyzed samples from intensive pig farms in eastern China between 2017 and 2019, and sequenced the main glycoproteins (gB, gC, gD, and gE) to study the evolution characteristics of PRV. Based on the gC gene, we found that PRV variants belong to clade 2 and detected a founder effect during by the PRV epidemic. In addition, we detected inter- and intra-clade recombination; in particular, inter-clade recombination in the gB genes of strains FJ-ZXF and FJ-W2, which were recombinant with clade 1 strains. We also found specific amino-acid changes and positively selected sites, possibly associated with functional changes. This analysis of the emergence of PRV in China illustrates the need for continuous monitoring and the development of vaccines against specific variants of PRV.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0500101), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20170721), the China Association for Science and Technology Youth Talent Lift Project (2017-2019).

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Author notes

  1. Xiaofeng Zhai and Wen Zhao have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Joint International Research Laboratory of Animal Health and Food Safety, Engineering Laboratory of Animal Immunity of Jiangsu Province, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Xiaofeng Zhai, Wen Zhao, Kemang Li, Cheng Zhang, Congcong Wang, Shuo Su, Jing Lei, Haifeng Sun, Zhiyu Shi & Jinyan Gu

  2. Key Laboratory of Animal Virology of Ministry of Agriculture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Jiyong Zhou & Gang Xing

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  1. Xiaofeng Zhai
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  2. Wen Zhao
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  3. Kemang Li
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  4. Cheng Zhang
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Contributions

XZ, WZ and SS designed the experiments. XZ, KL, CZ, CW and WZ carried out the experiments. CZ and XZ analyzed the data. JZ, JL, GX, HS, ZS and JG reviewed drafts of the paper, XZ, WZ and SS wrote the paper. SS checked and finalized the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shuo Su.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Animal and Human Rights Statement

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Zhai, X., Zhao, W., Li, K. et al. Genome Characteristics and Evolution of Pseudorabies Virus Strains in Eastern China from 2017 to 2019. Virol. Sin. 34, 601–609 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-019-00140-1

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Keywords

  • Pseudorabies virus (PRV)
  • Glycoproteins
  • Founder effect
  • Epidemic
  • Eastern China