Genome characterization of Turkey Rotavirus G strains from the United States identifies potential recombination events with human Rotavirus B strains.

Fangzhou Chen,Todd P Knutson,Robert E Porter,Douglas G Marthaler,Sunil Kumar Mor,Max Ciarlet

doi:10.1099/jgv.0.000963

Abstract

Rotavirus G (RVG) strains have been detected in a variety of avian species, but RVG genomes have been published from only a single pigeon and two chicken strains. Two turkey RVG strains were identified and characterized, one in a hatchery with no reported health issues and the other in a hatchery with high embryo/poult mortality. The two turkey RVG strains shared only an 85.3 % nucleotide sequence identity in the VP7 gene while the other genes possessed high nucleotide identity among them (96.3–99.9 %). Low nucleotide percentage identities (31.6–87.3 %) occurred among the pigeon and chicken RVG strains. Interestingly, potential recombination events were detected between our RVG strains and a human RVB strain, in the VP6 and NSP3 segments. The epidemiology of RVG in avian flocks and the pathogenicity of the two different RVG strains should be further investigated to understand the ecology and impact of RVG in commercial poultry flocks.

Highlights

Rotavirus G (RVG) strains have been detected in a variety of avian species, but RVG genomes have been published from only a single pigeon and two chicken strains
Belonging to the family Reoviridae, RVs consist of a nonenveloped virion encasing 11 double-stranded RNA segments, which encode for 5–6 non-structural proteins (NSP1-NSP5/NSP6) and 6 viral proteins (VP1-4, VP6 and VP7) [2]
RVB, RVC, RVE and RVH have detected in various mammalian species, while RVD, RVF and RVG have been exclusively identified in different avian species [1]

Summary

Introduction

Rotavirus G (RVG) strains have been detected in a variety of avian species, but RVG genomes have been published from only a single pigeon and two chicken strains. The sub-programmes GENECONV, MaxChi and Chimaera in RDP4 detected potential recombination in the VP6 gene segment, where the turkey RVG strains harboured a similar region in the 110–230 nucleotides to the human RVB/Human-wt/BAN/Bang117/ 2002

Results

Conclusion