Change in epitope sites of Mumps orthorubulavirus resources of the National Culture Collection for Pathogens in Korea

Abstract

With the introduction of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the global incidence of mumps has been effectively reduced since the late 1990s. In the last decade, however, mumps incidence has increased in the population of late teens to early 20s, and as a result, studies have been analyzing the cause and developing solutions. To provide the data source for such studies, the gene and amino acid sequence data were compared for the vaccine strain and five recently isolated Korean strains of Mumps orthorubulavirus (MUV) from the available strains at the National Culture Collection for Pathogens (NCCP), a pathogen bank in South Korea. The whole genome sequence (WGS) data on the five Korean MUV strains at the NCCP were built using next generation sequencing (NGS) analysis. In the phylogenetic analysis, genotypes H and I were identified by RAxML with multiple sequence alignment (MSA) using the MAFFT program. The sequences of F and HN proteins, the key antigenic sites of the five strains of NCCP MUV, were translated using the EMBOSS package and compared with the sequences of the same proteins of the vaccine strain (Genotype A, Jeryl_Lynn strain; AF338106). Multiple mutations at the B cell epitope, T cell epitope, and glycosylation sites were evident. The HN protein epitope site displayed eight mutations (N121S, R122SN, N123, L336S, E356D, Y442S, I287V, and H464N) shared across all NCCP MUVs. This research is anticipated to contribute to studies to enhance the vaccine strain and develop antiviral agents.