Abstract
The African swine fever epidemic occurred in Poland at the beginning of 2014 and, up to date, the disease has been spreading mainly in the eastern part of the country. Unexpectedly, in November 2019 an infected wild boar case was confirmed in Lubuskie voivodship in western Poland. During the following weeks, several dozen African swine fever virus (ASFV)-positive animals were notified in the neighboring area, causing severe concern regarding further spread of the disease to the mostly pig-dense region in Poland, namely, Wielkopolskie voivodship. Moreover, almost a year after, several infected wild boar cases were confirmed for the first time in Germany, just beyond the Polish border, sending out a shock wave through the global pig market. The whole genome sequence of ASFV, isolated from the first case of ASF in western Poland, and three selected viruses from other affected areas, revealed the tandem repeat and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variations in reference to the Georgia 2007/1 strain. These data, supported by the conventional sequencing of selected genomic regions from a total of 154 virus samples isolated between 2017 and 2020 in Poland, shed a new light on pathogen epidemiology. The sequence variations within the O174L gene detected in this study showed that cases identified in western Poland might be originating from the so-called southern Warsaw cluster. Moreover, the viruses originating from the northern Warsaw cluster do not possess single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutations within the K145R and MGF 505-5R genes, which are specific to all of the other Polish ASFV strains. These results led to a conclusion of their distinct origin. Supporting these results, the nucleotide sequencing of I73R/I329L intergenic region revealed its new, previously undescribed variant, called IGR IV, with an additional three tandem repeats of 10 nucleotides in comparison to the reference sequence of the Georgia 2007/1 strain.
Highlights
African swine fever (ASF) is considered as one of the most devastating diseases of pigs and wild boar
Sequence variations within the sequence of the O174L gene detected in this study showed that cases in eastern Poland are probably originating from the southeastern Warsaw cluster
The nucleotide genomic alignment was performed to compare obtained sequences with other African swine fever virus (ASFV) whole genome sequences belonging to genotype II; these are currently available at GenBank database
Summary
African swine fever (ASF) is considered as one of the most devastating diseases of pigs and wild boar. Its rapid spread in Europe and Asia led to severe and difficult-to-estimate economic loss around the world. The virus was introduced to Poland at the beginning of 2014, and since it has been spreading in the wild boar population, with seasonal spillovers to the domestic pig population [1]. Until the end of 2019 the disease had been reported only among the eastern voivodships of Poland, i.e., Podlaskie, Lubelskie, Mazowieckie, Viruses 2020, 12, 1094; doi:10.3390/v12101094 www.mdpi.com/journal/viruses. On November 6th of 2019, a wild boar killed in a car accident was found in Sława, Wschowa county, Lubuskie voivodship in western. The humeral bone of this animal was collected and sent to the National ASF Reference
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