Genomic Characterization of Pseudorabies Virus Strains Isolated in Italy

Abstract

In this study, we undertook the genomic characterization of 54 pseudorabies virus (PRV) strains isolated in Italy during 1984-2010. The characterization was based on partial sequencing of the UL44 (gC) and US8 (gE) genes; 44 strains (38 for gene gE and 36 for gC) were isolated on pig farms; 9 originated from dogs and 1 from cattle. These porcine PRV strains, which were closely related to those isolated in Europe and America in the last 20 years, and the bovine strain bovine/It/2441/1992 belong to cluster B in both phylogenetic trees. Six porcine strains that do not belong to cluster B are related in both gE and gC phylogenetic trees to the 'old' porcine PRV strains isolated in the 1970s and 1980s. In the last two decades, the presence of these strains in domestic pig populations has been reduced drastically, whereas they are prevalent in wild boar. The two remaining strains have an interesting genomic profile, characterized by the gC gene being closely related to the old porcine PRV strains, and the gE gene being similar to that of recently isolated strains. Three strains originating from working dogs on pig farms are located in cluster B in both phylogenetic trees. Five strains isolated from hunting dogs have a high degree of correlation with PRV strains circulating in wild boar. The last isolate has a gC gene similar to that in the two porcine strains mentioned previously, and the gE gene is correlated with the strains isolated from hunting dogs. These results provide interesting insight into the genomic characterization of PRV strains and reveal a clear differentiation between the strains isolated from hunting dogs that are related to the wild boar strains and those originating from domestic pigs.

Pathogenicity and genomic characterization of a pseudorabies virus variant isolated from Bartha-K61-vaccinated swine population in China

“…Sequences alignment and phylogenetic analysis of PRV isolates, showed that many protein-coding sequences of the TJ strain are identical or highly homologous to those of the BJ/YT strain, a PRV isolated from a dog in Beijing in 2012. PRV infections in dogs, because of hunting feral or domestic swine, have been reported (Cramer et al, 2011;Sozzi et al, 2014). The BJ/YT strain is closely related to recent Chinese PRV isolates of swine origin and thus likely to originate from pigs.…”

Whole-Genome Sequence of a Suid Herpesvirus-1 Strain Isolated from the Brain of a Hunting Dog in Italy

“…The mean coverage of the obtained consensus sequence representing the whole genome of ADV32751/Italy2014 (142,276 bp) was 841×. Previous studies demonstrated that the Italian SHV-1 strains are divided into three clusters (4) and that clear genetic distinction between strains isolated from hunting dogs exposed to wild boars and those originated from working dogs, with domestic pigs as likely sources, does exist (5). By phylogenetic analysis of partial gC gene sequences, ADV32751/Italy2014 apparently belongs to the Italian cluster 1 with other SHV-1 strains isolated from wild boars and hunting dogs in Italy (4).…”

Evolutionary Diversity of Suid Herpesvirus 1 Based on Ul44 Partial Sequences

“…215 partial Ul44 nucleotide sequences of SuHV-1 were collected from GenBank with the largest possible amount of information available on host, year, and country of isolation [4,5,6,8,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. The sequences were identified using the name of the isolate in GenBank followed by a three-letter code to identify the country of origin: Germany (GER), Argentina (ARG), Austria (AUS), Brazil (BRA), China (CHI), Croatia (CRO), Greece (GRE), South Korea (SKO), Slovakia (SLK), Spain (ESP), United States (USA), Japan (JAP), Hungary (HUN), Italy (ITA), Northern Ireland (NIR), Malaysia (MAL), or Sweden (SWE).…”