Full-Length Genomic Sequence of Bovine Coronavirus (31kb)

Abstract

Bovine Coronavirus (BCV) is an important veterinary pathogen which causes neonatal diarrhea in newborn calves and winter dysentery in adult cattle. Recent studies indicate that BCV also infects the respiratory tract of cattle producing severe respiratory problems, especially in feedlot cattle. BCV belongs to the antigenic group II of coronaviruses and shares the antigenic and genetic similarities with mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), human Coronavirus strain OC43, turkey Coronavirus, and hemagglutinating encephalomyelitis virus of pigs. Approximately 10 kb of the 3’ most BCV genome has been sequenced, and this region is known to encode all the structural proteins plus the 32k nonstructural protein which resides immediately upstream of the hemagglutinin-esterase (HE) glycoprotein gene. The comparative studies indicate that the genome organization of BCV is similar to but distinct from MHV. In BCV, the HE gene is functional coding for a major envelop protein while it is an optional gene in MHV. Similarly, the 32k protein gene is absent in some of the MHV variants. The region between the spike (S) protein gene and the small membrane (E) protein gene also shows a significant sequence divergence among coronaviruses. Two thirds of the BCV genome remain largely undetermined.KeywordsInfectious Bronchitis VirusMouse Hepatitis VirusFeedlot CattleProteolytic Cleavage SiteAvian Infectious Bronchitis VirusThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.