Abstract
Background Pseudorabies virus (PRV) is the causative agent of Aujeszky's disease giving rise to significant economic losses worldwide. Many countries have implemented national programs for the eradication of this virus. In this study, long-read sequencing was used to determine the nucleotide sequence of the genome of a novel PRV strain (PRV-MdBio) isolated in Serbia. Results In this study, a novel PRV strain was isolated and characterized. PRV-MdBio was found to exhibit similar growth properties to those of another wild-type PRV, the strain Kaplan. Single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing has revealed that the new strain differs significantly in base composition even from strain Kaplan, to which it otherwise exhibits the highest similarity. We compared the genetic composition of PRV-MdBio to strain Kaplan and the China reference strain Ea and obtained that radical base replacements were the most common point mutations preceding conservative and silent mutations. We also found that the adaptation of PRV to cell culture does not lead to any tendentious genetic alteration in the viral genome. Conclusion PRV-MdBio is a wild-type virus, which differs in base composition from other PRV strains to a relatively large extent.
Highlights
Pseudorabies virus (PRV) is the causative agent of Aujeszky’s disease giving rise to significant economic losses worldwide
E adult swine is the only susceptible animal that can survive a PRV infection. e virus causes fatal encephalitis in all other susceptible species, including dogs, cats, laboratory mice, and rats, but these animals represent a dead-end for the PRV infection, because they are unable to transmit the disease through the conventional nasal route
Isolation of Pseudorabies Virus from the Organs of Infected Pigs. e infected organs have been dissected from a dead pig in a PRV outbreak occurred several years before the genetic analysis. e clinical symptoms of Aujeszky’s disease (AD) are not specific; we examined the infected organs of the pigs prior to the detailed molecular analysis
Summary
Pseudorabies virus (PRV) termed as Aujeszky’s disease virus or suid alphaherpes virus 1 is the causative agent of Aujeszky’s disease (AD) [1]. E virus causes fatal encephalitis in all other susceptible species, including dogs, cats, laboratory mice, and rats, but these animals represent a dead-end for the PRV infection, because they are unable to transmit the disease through the conventional nasal route. These features make PRV an ideal model organism for studying the molecular biology and pathomechanism of herpesviruses [6, 7] This virus is widely used as a live tracer for mapping polysynaptic neural circuits [8,9,10] for gene delivery to cardiac muscle cells [11] and neurons [12], as well as for oncolytic virotherapy [13]. E PRV genome is composed of very high overall GC content (∼74%) and a large number of repetitive elements; it is difficult to sequence it with the new generation short-read techniques or with the Sanger method. PacBio sequencing is advantageous compared to other techniques in that it does not produce systematic errors and any that may arise can be corrected due to its high consensus accuracy [24]
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