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Journal of Virology, June 2002, p. 5813-5821, Vol. 76, No. 11
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.11.5813-5821.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Institut für Virologie, Klinikum der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, 07745 Jena,1 Bundesforschungsanstalt für Viruskrankheiten der Tiere, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institut für Virusdiagnostik, 17498 Insel Riems, Germany,2 Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright Laboratory, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey GU24 ONF, United Kingdom3
Received 20 October 2001/ Accepted 7 March 2002
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The prototype strains V13, UKG/410/73, and LP54 were obtained from the Institute for Animal Health Pirbright Laboratory (Pirbright, United Kingdom). The field isolates UKG/216/80 (Institute for Animal Health Pirbright Laboratory); Sek 1562/98 (Institut für Tierzucht, Tierhaltung und Tiergesundheit, Oldenburg, Germany); and 16-SX, 26-TXII, and 39-VII (Landesveterinär- und Lebensmitteluntersuchungsamt Sachsen-Anhalt, Stendal, Germany) were serologically typed by an indirect immunofluorescence assay by using a set of serotype-specific monoclonal antibodies (3). Viruses were propagated in porcine kidney (PS-EK) cells and porcine embryonic testes cells (EHF-R; CCLV RIE170). Prior to sequencing, RNA of virus-infected cells was prepared, reverse transcribed, and amplified essentially as described previously (30). The 5' and 3' ends of the viral genomes were amplified with the 5'/3'-RACE (rapid amplification of cDNA ends) kit of Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany. Based on cloned RACE fragments and available partial sequences (accession no. Y14459, AJ001391, AF250675, and AB049559), a set of 64 specific oligonucleotides were designed and used to amplify large DNA fragments up to 7 kbp. Both strands of the viral genomes were sequenced. Sequencing was done according to the cycle sequencing protocol with an ABI Inc. (Foster City, Calif.) Prism 310 sequencer. Sequences were submitted to GenBank (accession no. AF406813, AF363453, AF363454, and AF363455) and compared to other picornavirus sequences obtained from the GenBank or the Picornavirus Sequence Database (http://www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/virus/Picornaviridae/SequenceDatabase/Index.html). Sequences were aligned with the Clustal W program (25) and optimized manually. Neighbor-joining trees were calculated by the quartet puzzling method (23, 24) with the JTT substitution model for amino acid sequences (8). The reliability of clustering was tested by 10,000 iterations in the quartet puzzling method. For tree construction, maximum-likelihood branch lengths were calculated. RNA secondary predictions and free energy calculations were performed with the mfold program, version 3.0 (32).
Our sequencing results indicate that the genome organization of the PEV group III (i.e., PEV-9 and -10) corresponds to the typical enterovirus or rhinovirus genome, while PEV group II (PEV-8) differs from the enteroviruses by two deviant features: the polyprotein is preceded by a leader protein, and the 2A protein has an unusual length of about 226 amino acids. Figure 1 compares the genome organizations of the three PEV groups. These differences in the genome organization should be considered as distinctive features of PEV group I (teschoviruses) and group II with respect to the enterovirus genus. According to M. H. V. van Regenmortel, genus demarcation criteria include differences in gene maps and variation in the fine structure of the proteins (27). Sequence alignments and phylogenetic comparisons of the capsid protein precursor (P1) and the 3D polymerase (3Dpol) amino acid sequences with those of each recognized and proposed picornavirus species reveal a close relationship of PEV-8 with the simian picornavirus SV2 and a distant relationship with all picornavirus genera (Fig. 2). Recently,
the simian picornaviruses SV2, SV16, SV18, SV42, SV44, SV45, and SV49 were proposed to be members of a new picornavirus genus (18). Although related, PEV-8 and SV2 are clearly distinct from each other, as shown in Table 1. The amino acid identities of the capsid proteins range from 46 to 75% (P1, 61%). Pairwise comparison of the VP1 capsid proteins of these simian picornaviruses with PEV-8 VP1 (Fig. 2C) reveals the existence of three species. While a large cluster comprising SV2, SV16, SV18, SV42, SV44, and SV45 has amino acid identity values ranging from 71 to 95%, the amino acid identity values of SV49 and the large cluster range from 47 to 52%. Comparison of PEV-8 with the simian piocornaviruses results in amino acid identity values ranging from 54 to 61%. A discontinuous frequency distribution of the amino acid identity values (Fig. 2D) strongly supports the hypothesis that these viruses belong to three different species. In previous investigations, this approach was successfully applied to provide evidence for species distinction (19, 28).
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FIG. 1. Genome organization of the three PEV groups. The open reading frames are flanked on either side by NTRs. Gene regions (not drawn to scale) are presented. Gene regions encoding proteases are highlighted in black, and those encoding L proteins and the PEV-8 2A gene region are shaded in gray. Viruses of PEV group I, which were recently reclassified as teschoviruses, are characterized by a foot-and-mouth disease virus-like 2A peptidase and a leader protein of unknown function. PEV-8, the only known member of PEV group II, has a leader protein and a 2A protein of unknown function. A 90-nucleotide stretch of the 5'-NTR has a striking homology to the teschovirus 5'-NTR, while the 3'-NTR shares similarities with the PEV group III viruses. PEV-9 and -10 (PEV group III) are typical enteroviruses. Their genome organization is identical to that of entero- and rhinoviruses. The genome-linked 3B peptides at the 5' end (small circles) and the poly(A) tails at the 3' ends are indicated. The processing sites of 3C protease (arrowheads) and 2A protease (small arrows) are also shown. A question mark symbolizes unknown proteolytic activities responsible for the maturation cleavage of the 1AB precursor and the release of the PEV-8 leader protein.
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FIG. 2. Phylogenetic relationships of PEV-8 to other picornaviruses. Unrooted neighbor-joining trees of the 3D polymerase (A) and the P1 capsid proteins (B) of 22 picornavirus species. Amino acid sequences were aligned with the Clustal W program. Maximum-likelihood branch lengths were calculated by the quartet puzzling method. Branch lengths are proportional to genetic divergence. The scale bar indicates the number of amino acid substitutions per site. Circles indicate picornavirus genera. The proposed genus containing PEV-8 and SV2 is indicated by a shaded circle. Numbers at nodes represent percentages of bipartitions in intermediate trees that have been generated in 10,000 puzzling steps. Note that capsid protein sequences (B) are not suited to differentiate the enterovirus and rhinovirus genera. (C) Pairwise comparison of VP1 sequences of PEV-8 and seven simian picornaviruses. Percent amino acid identities are given. The dotted box indicates amino acid identity values of a major cluster of serotypes that likely represent a new species. The comparison of two strains of the same serotype results in high amino acid identity values, which are highlighted. The small box marks pairwise comparisons of SV49, with the major serotype cluster indicating that SV49 may belong to a different species. (D) Frequency distribution of pairwise amino acid identity scores of the VP1 capsid proteins. The amino acid identity scores of up to 65% are characteristic of comparisons of heterologous species, while amino acid identity scores above 66% indicate comparisons of (i) different strains of homologous serotypes or (ii) heterologous serotypes of homologous species. A-2, A-2 plaque virus; AELV, avian encephalomyelitis-like virus; AiV, aichivirus; BEV, bovine enterovirus; EMCV, encephalomyocarditis virus; ERAV, equine rhinitis A virus (formerly equine rhinovirus 1); ERBV, equine rhinitis B virus (formerly equine rhinovirus 2); FMDV, foot-and-mouth disease virus; HAV, hepatitis A virus; HEV, human enterovirus; HPeV, human parechovirus (formerly echoviruses 22 and 23); HRV, human rhinovirus; PV, poliovirus; SV, simian virus; Theilo, theilovirus.
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TABLE 1. Amino acid sequence relationships between PEV-8 and the other picornavirus species
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Enteroviruses and rhinoviruses are characterized by highly conserved RNA secondary structures, which serve in the initiation of replication and translation (22). This feature is commonly used for the group-specific detection of human enteroviruses (e.g., reference 11) and PEVs (29). However, the 5'-NTRs of the PEV group II and III viruses contain unique sequences. While the overall RNA folding pattern of the 5'-NTR is conserved for the sequenced PEV-9 and -10 strains, the 5'-cloverleaf of these viruses has a unique insertion leading to a prolongation of subdomain D of the cloverleaf (Fig. 3). Although the biologic function of the insertion is still unknown, this observation is of special interest, because subdomain D of poliovirus and rhinovirus 14 was previously identified to bind the 3C/3CD proteinase (1, 15). The resulting ribonucleoprotein complex is a prerequisite for the initiation of positive-strand RNA synthesis (2). This could hint at a modified mechanism of replication initiation or translation initiation.
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FIG. 3. Analysis of enteroviral and rhinoviral 5'-NTRs. (A) Five folding patterns of the 5'-NTRs of the enteroviral and rhinoviral species are schematically illustrated. With respect to the human enteroviruses, the rhinoviruses and the animal enteroviruses (including A-2 plaque virus as a possible new enterovirus species) show significant differences, which are boxed. (B) Comparison of the 5' cloverleaf of a typical human enterovirus (CVB3) and sequenced virus strains of PEV group III. The stem-loop D of the PEVs is significantly prolonged.
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FIG. 4. Comparison of partial 5'-NTR sequences of PEV-8, SV2, and PTV-1. (A) Sequence alignment of five PEV-8 strains (V13, 39-VII, 16-SX, 26-TXII, and Sek1562/98), SV2, and PTV-1 Talfan. A homology of this part of the 5'-NTR is obvious. Deviant nucleotides are underlined. The proposed AUG start codon is boxed. (B) The highly conserved nucleotides allow the formation of two putative RNA secondary structures, which are likely to play a role in a specific mechanism of translation initiation of these viruses.
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G = -23.5 kcal/mol versus approximately -16.5 kcal/mol as previously suggested [10]). Recently, kissing interactions between domains X and Y of the 3'-NTR of poliovirus, coxsackievirus B3, and coxsackievirus A9 were suggested (16, 17, 20, 21). Likewise, the putative secondary structures of PEV-8, -9, and -10 allow the formation of a similar pseudoknot-like element, which appears to be conserved among all human and animal enteroviruses (Fig. 5).
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FIG. 5. Comparison of the putative 3'-NTR secondary structures of PEV groups II and III with those of other enterovirus species. HEV, human enterovirus. Each species is represented by a typical member (in parentheses). Large boxes indicate conserved sequences of bovine enterovirus (BEV) and PEV species, and small boxes emphasize additional similarities between PEV groups II and III. The putative domains are designated X, Y, and Z starting from the 3' end. Nucleotides likely to be involved in the formation of a pseudoknot-like element are underlined.
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The recent proposal by the Picornavirus Study Group (12) that considers PEV-8 a member of the enterovirus species "PEV-A" should be revised. The data presented here strongly support the establishment of a new picornavirus genus. This reclassification should be done on the basis of a different genome map, unique L and 2A sequences, and a considerable degree of genetic distance from all recognized and proposed picornavirus genera. This new genus should contain three speciesPEV-8, SV49, and SV2together with the related simian picornaviruses SV16, SV18, SV42, SV44, and SV45. Our suggestion would extend a previous proposal for reclassification of simian picornaviruses (18). For consistency, PEV-9 and -10 should not be addressed as enterovirus species "PEV-B," but as "PEV."
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