Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Virology, July 1999, p. 5646-5653, Vol. 73, No. 7
Institut für Virologie (FB
Veterinärmedizin), Justus-Liebig-Universität, D-35392
Giessen, Germany
Received 17 December 1998/Accepted 2 April 1999
Four bovine viral diarrhea virus type 2 (BVDV-2) pairs consisting
of cytopathogenic (cp) and noncp BVDV-2 were isolated during an
outbreak of mucosal disease. Comparative sequence analysis showed that
the four noncp BVDV-2 isolates were almost identical. For the cp BVDV-2
isolates, viral subgenomic RNAs were shown by Northern blot to have a
length of about 8 kb, which is about 4.3 kb shorter than the genome of
noncp BVDV. Cytopathogenicity and the expression of NS3 were both
strictly correlated to the presence of viral subgenomic RNAs. By
reverse transcription-PCR, Southern blot analysis, and nucleotide
sequencing, a set of 11 unique subgenomes was identified with up to 5 different subgenomes isolated from one animal. To our knowledge, this
is the first report on isolation of a set of pestiviral subgenomes from
individual animals. Common features of the BVDV-2 subgenomic RNAs
include (i) deletion of most of the genomic region encoding the
structural proteins, as well as the nonstructural proteins p7 and NS2,
and (ii) insertion of cellular (poly)ubiquitin coding sequences. Three
subgenomes also comprised 15 to 75 nucleotides derived from the 5' part
of the NS2 gene. Comparisons of the obtained nucleotide sequences revealed that the different BVDV-2 subgenomes evolved from the respective noncp BVDV-2 by RNA recombination. The presence of short
regions of sequence similarity at several crossing-over sites suggests
that base pairing between the nascent RNA strand and the acceptor RNA
template facilitates template switching of the BVDV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Nonhomologous RNA Recombination in Bovine Viral Diarrhea
Virus: Molecular Characterization of a Variety of Subgenomic
RNAs Isolated during an Outbreak of Fatal Mucosal Disease
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut
für Virologie (FB Veterinärmedizin),
Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Frankfurter Str. 107, D-35392
Giessen, Germany. Phone: 49-641-99-38350. Fax: 49-641-99-38359. E-mail:
paul.becher{at}vetmed.uni-giessen.de.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»