Abstract
In 1998, a novel H3N2 reassortant virus emerged in the United States swine population. We report the interspecies transmission of this virus to turkeys in two geographically distant farms in the United States in 2003. This event is of concern, considering the reassortment capacity of this virus and the susceptibility of turkey to infection by avian influenza viruses. Two H3N2 isolates, A/turkey/NC/16108/03 and A/turkey/MN/764/03, had 98.0% to 99.9% nucleotide sequence identity to each other in all eight gene segments. All protein components of the turkey isolates had 97% to 98% sequence identity to swine H3N2 viruses, thus demonstrating interspecies transmission from pigs to turkeys. The turkey isolates were better adapted to avian hosts than were their closest swine counterparts, which suggests that the viruses had already begun to evolve in the new host. The isolation of swine-like H3N2 influenza viruses from turkeys raises new concerns for the generation of novel viruses that could affect humans.
Highlights
In 1998, a novel H3N2 reassortant virus emerged in the United States swine population
In 1998, H3N2 triple reassortants with genes derived from human (HA, NA, and PB1), swine (M, NS, and NP), and avian viruses (PA and PB2) were first isolated in the United States; they have since become endemic in swine populations [7,8,9]
We identified them as H3N2 viruses by using reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) under conditions optimized for swine influenza viruses [16]
Summary
In 1998, a novel H3N2 reassortant virus emerged in the United States swine population. In 1998, H3N2 triple reassortants with genes derived from human (HA, NA, and PB1), swine (M, NS, and NP), and avian viruses (PA and PB2) were first isolated in the United States; they have since become endemic in swine populations [7,8,9]. These viruses underwent further reassortment to create additional H3N2 viruses isolated from pigs [8], as well as H1N2 viruses isolated from pigs [10,11,12], turkey [13], and wild duck [14]; this finding demonstrates that viruses containing this gene combination can cross the species barrier.
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