Abstract
Poxviruses are large DNA viruses with varying zoonotic potential, and are recognised in a broad range of wildlife. Although poxviruses have been detected in kangaroos, their genetic relationships to poxviruses in other animals and humans is not well understood. Here, we present a novel genome sequence of a marsupial poxvirus, the Eastern grey kangaroopox virus (EKPV-NSW), isolated from a wild eastern grey kangaroo. In the present study, histopathologically confirmed epidermal pox lesions were used to recover the full-length viral genome and perform electron microscopic analysis, with both immature virions and intracellular mature virions detected. Subsequent analysis of the EKPV-NSW genome demonstrated the highest degree of sequence similarity with EKPV-SC strain (91.51%), followed by WKPV-WA (87.93%), and MOCV1 (44.05%). The novel EKPV-NSW complete genome encompasses most of the chordopoxviruses protein coding genes (138) that are required for genome replication and expression, with only three essential protein coding genes being absent. The novel EKPV-NSW is missing 28 predicted genes compared to the recently isolated EKPV-SC, and carries 21 additional unique genes, encoding unknown proteins. Phylogenetic and recombination analyses showed EKPV-NSW to be the distinct available candidate genome of chordopoxviruses.
Highlights
The family Poxviridae includes a wide range of pathogenic enveloped, double-stranded DNA viruses with varying zoonotic potential that have been recognised in a broad range of wildlife taxa including hundreds of bird species, reptiles, marine mammals, macropods, marsupials, monotremes, ungulates, equids, and primates[1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
There is a strong likelihood that Eastern grey kangaroopox virus (EKPV) represents at least one naturally occurring pathogenic poxvirus species of kangaroos in Australia
The genome of EKPV-NSW is sufficiently diverse from recently isolated KPVs16, as well as all other known poxvirus genomes sequenced to date, and we propose for it to be classified within a new poxvirus genus
Summary
The family Poxviridae includes a wide range of pathogenic enveloped, double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses with varying zoonotic potential that have been recognised in a broad range of wildlife taxa including hundreds of bird species, reptiles, marine mammals, macropods, marsupials, monotremes, ungulates, equids, and primates[1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The natural host range is a factor for establishing the taxonomic status of new poxvirus species. In some species the host range is narrow including only one known host An example of this is the extinct Variola virus, the cause of smallpox in humans. As has recently been demonstrated for other DNA viruses[9,10], the discovery of individual novel poxvirus species in new hosts can provide more accurate phylogenetic trees and improved taxonomic classification for the family Poxviridae[11]. In Australia, kangaroo pox has been recognised in a wide range of native macropod species[14,15,17] including the eastern (Macropus giganteus) and western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus) species, red kangaroo (Macropus rufus), common wallaroo (Macropus robustus), tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii), agile wallaby (Macropus agilis), swamp wallaby (Wallabia bicolor), Tasmanian pademelon (Thylogale billardierii) and quokka (Setonix brachyurus)[18]. This paper describes the genomic structure of a novel EKPV-NSW virus from a wild eastern grey kangaroo with pox
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