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Journal of Virology, May 2008, p. 5099-5103, Vol. 82, No. 10
0022-538X/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01993-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Genomic Analysis of Closely Related Astroviruses
Errol Strain,1
Laura A. Kelley,3
Stacey Schultz-Cherry,4
Spencer V. Muse,1 and
Matthew D. Koci2*
Department of Statistics,1
Department of Poultry Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695,2
Plant Science Research, Biosciences Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Fargo, North Dakota 58105,3
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 537064
Received 10 September 2007/
Accepted 23 February 2008

ABSTRACT
To understand astrovirus biology, it is essential to understand
factors associated with its evolution. The current study reports
the genomic sequences of nine novel turkey astrovirus (TAstV)
type 2-like clinical isolates. This represents, to our knowledge,
the largest genomic-length data set available for any one astrovirus
type. The comparison of these TAstV sequences suggests that
the TAstV species contains multiple subtypes and that recombination
events have occurred across the astrovirus genome. In addition,
the analysis of the capsid gene demonstrated evidence for both
site-specific positive selection and purifying selection.

TEXT
Members of the
Astroviridae are frequently associated with clinical
diarrhea in the young of both mammalian and avian hosts (
2,
9,
15). In spite of their worldwide distribution and endemic
nature, our understanding of their evolution is limited. The
majority of previous studies of astrovirus phylogeny have examined
relationships among clinical isolates based on diagnostic reverse
transcription-PCR amplicons (
5,
19). While sequences from short
diagnostic amplicons have been successful in assigning isolates
to groups, they lack the power to accurately resolve phylogenetic
relationships (
14). Studies which have attempted to reconstruct
the astrovirus phylogeny using genome alignments have done so
across astrovirus genera (
26). The sequence divergence and differences
in codon usage across the
Astroviridae may confound conclusions
about phylogenetic relationships and selection pressure. The
current study describes the phylogenetic analysis of multiple
genomic sequences of closely related turkey astrovirus (TAstV)
clinical isolates collected from commercial turkey flocks across
the United States. Representative isolates from each location
were randomly selected, and the full-length genomic sequences
were determined as previously described (
8). Chromatogram data
were analyzed using phred, phrap, and consed software (
3,
4);
sequences were aligned using ClustalW (
25) and were edited using
GeneDoc (
18). Amino acid- and nucleotide-based estimates of
phylogeny were generated by using both MrBayes (
6) and the hypothesis
testing using phylogenies (HYPHY) package (
10).
Evidence of distinct subtypes.
The relationships of the novel clinical TAstV isolates (GenBank accession numbers EU143843 to EU143851) within the Astroviridae were first assessed by using predicted capsid amino acid sequences. The topology of this tree (Fig. 1A) was consistent with previous studies demonstrating two major clades containing the genera Mamastrovirus and Avastrovirus and minor clades corresponding to their host species (29). All of the clinical isolates clustered with TAstV-2/NC/99, TAstV1987, and TAstV2001 (TAstV-2-like) (Fig. 1A). The TAstV-1 capsid sequence was found in a clade with avian nephritis virus, with the distance between the reference TAstV-1 (accession no. CAB95007) and TAstV-2 (TAstV-2/NC/99; accession no. AAF18464) sequences comparable to the distance between human astroviruses (HAstVs) and other mamastroviruses. The sequence analysis of TAstV-1 and TAstV-2 diagnostic amplicons, previously described by Pantin-Jackwood et al. (19) and Cattoli et al. (1), demonstrated that the levels of variation among TAstV-1-like isolates and among TAstV-2-like isolates are comparable to the level of diversity among HAstVs. The phylogenetic analysis of the full-length capsid genes of all TAstV viruses (Fig. 1A) suggests that TAstV-1-like and TAstV-2-like viruses may have originated from separate introductions into the turkey species and that there are at least two TAstV lineages which should be regarded as distinct subtypes instead of serotypes. Within each subtype, there appears the potential for distinct serotypes to exist, as TAstV2001 and TAstV1987 have been reported to represent distinct serotypes (24) and share only 73% nucleotide sequence identity (23). This level of sequence conservation is similar to that of HAstV capsid genes from different serotypes (<80% nucleotide similarity; unpublished observation). These sequence differences suggest that MN/01 may represent a serotype that is distinct from that of TAstV-2/NC/99; however, experimental examination of the serological cross-reactivity of MN/01 with other viruses is needed. Collectively, these findings suggest that the ecology of Avastrovirus species may be more complicated than currently appreciated. Interestingly, Lukashov et al. (14) described the phylogenetic evidence of at least two cross-species transmissions within the genus Mamastrovirus. This leads one to question if other, as-yet-unidentified astrovirus subtypes exist within mammalian populations.
Genomic analysis is required to understand phylogeny.
To develop a more-accurate reconstruction of the relationships
among the TAstV-2-like viruses, phylogenies were constructed
using genomic, open reading frame 1a (ORF1a), ORF1b, and ORF2
sequences from the TAstV-2-like clinical isolates and the TAstV-2/NC/99
reference sequence (Fig.
1B to E). The analysis of the TAstV-2-like
clinical isolates demonstrates variation in phylogenetic relationships
across the different ORFs in comparison to the full genome (Fig.
1B to E). While generating this level of data on a routine basis
is impractical for diagnostic purposes, it is important to recognize
that the region of viral genome analyzed can affect the interpretation
of phylogenetic relationships. The initial characterization
of a virus based on its capsid sequence is effective for establishing
its genus and species; however, to understand the evolutionary
history of an isolate during an outbreak, sufficient sequence
coverage should be included to ensure the most-accurate relationship
possible. This is highlighted by the observation that MI/00
clustered with PA/01 and VA/99 in ORF1a and ORF1b trees (Fig.
1C to D) but was found with CO/01 in the capsid phylogeny tree
(Fig.
1E). MI/00 and CO/01 ORF2 sequences were 99% identical
for both amino acids and nucleotides, while the ORF1a and -1b
sequences had

91% nucleotide and

94% amino acid identities,
respectively. These observations, together with reports by Walter
et al. (
28) and Pantin-Jackwood et al. (
20), suggest that the
region around the ORF1b-ORF2 junction is a potential recombination
hot spot.
Phylogenetic evidence of recombination across the astrovirus genome.
The Sawyer test for recombination (21) was performed to further analyze the potential recombination event between MI/00 and CO/01, and a breakpoint was identified (P < 0.0001) at nucleotide position 4861. To determine if this region was the only region associated with recombination, the analysis was expanded using GENECONV (21) to test all pairwise comparisons of the entire isolate genomes. Forty-six total recombination events were identified, with at least one recombination event identified in each of the 10 TAstV-2-like isolates (accession numbers EU143843 to EU143851 and AF206663) (Fig. 2A). The distribution of the putative recombination events corresponded with the level of divergence across the three reading frames. ORF1b is the least divergent and had only two putative recombination events. ORF2 is the most divergent and contained the majority of putative recombination events (Fig. 2A). The evidence of recombination was also assessed using TOPALi (16) to analyze the TAstV-2-like multiple alignment. TOPALi analysis demonstrated similar evidence for recombination, with the strongest support near the junctions between ORFs (Fig. 2B), suggesting an association between recombination and transcriptional signal sequences (7, 13). Furthermore, the finding that at least one putative recombination event was detected in every isolate suggests that recombination may play a key role in astrovirus sequence diversity.
Role of selection in astrovirus capsid evolution.
Sequence diversity in astroviruses may also involve host selection
pressures. These pressures would presumably explain the existence
of distinct serotypes. To address this, TAstV-2-like astroviruses
were analyzed for selection using two alignments. The first
alignment contained TAstV-2-like capsid sequences (accession
numbers EU143843 to EU143851 and AF206663). The second alignment
contained TAstV-2-like sequences that were found to have >80%
nucleotide similarity to TAstV-2/NC/99, excluding sequences
which may belong to different serotypes (MN/01) based on the
sequence distances observed (Fig.
1A). For comparison, two HAstV
alignments were also analyzed. The first included at least one
sequence from each serotype (HAstV), and the second alignment
included eight HAstV-4 capsid sequences (HAstV-4). The phylogenies
for the four alignments were constructed using HYPHY and analyzed
by genetic algorithm for recombination detection (GARD) (
11).
Breakpoints were recorded in the data input file, and tests
for selection were performed using the fixed-effects likelihood
(FEL), internal fixed-effects likelihood (IFEL), and random-effects
likelihood (REL) models (
10,
11) and the partitioning approach
for robust inference of selection (PARRIS) (
22) methods implemented
at
http://www.datamonkey.org. Each method uses likelihood-based
analysis to identify sites where the rate of nonsynonymous substitution
is greater than the rate of synonymous substitution.
The FEL and IFEL methods identified a small number of positively selected sites in the TAstV-2 alignments, while REL and PARRIS found no evidence of positive selection (Tables 1 and 2). More sites were identified as positively selected with IFEL than FEL, suggesting that selective pressure is occurring primarily at the population level (internal branches). Results from the analysis of the HAstV were similar to those for TAstV-2, except that REL identified positively selected sites in the multiple-serotype HAstV data set (Table 1). Sites with strong evidence for selection in TAstV-2 and HAstV were located primarily near the 3' end of the sequence, which is thought to comprise the outer surface of the viral capsid (12).
FEL, IFEL, and REL were also used to look for sites that were
under purifying selection, where the rate of synonymous substitution
is higher than the rate of nonsynonymous substitution. Considerably
more sites were identified to be under purifying selection (Table
1), similar to previous findings (
27). The interpretation of
the selection analysis may be confounded by the fact that the
models of sequence evolution used in these analyses assume that
the alignment is fixed and may not detect positive selection
at indel sites. This may explain why the more-diverse data sets
show more sites under purifying selection. Selection pressures
(selective pressures conferring an advantage to mutant viruses)
are likely to be involved in astrovirus capsid evolution; however,
these data (Tables
1 and
2) suggest that positive selection
at the codon level is not the dominant mechanism driving diversity.
This study is the first, to our knowledge, to analyze the phylogenetic relationships of multiple, highly related, full-length astrovirus genomes and the first to explore the role of recombination and selection across the genomes of highly related astroviruses. The results from these analyses suggest there are two distinct subtypes of TAstV which may have resulted from separate introductions into turkeys. Overall, the results from these analyses do not point to one mechanism as the primary means of achieving sequence diversity in astroviruses; instead, they suggest that astroviruses employ all sequence-changing mechanisms available to positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses and underscore the need for models which allow for all of these factors to be analyzed together.
Accession numbers.
Accession numbers for capsid amino acid sequences are as follows: CAB95007 (TAstV-1), AAV37187 (TAstV2001), AAV37186 (TAstV1987), AAF18464 (TAstV-2/NC/99), BAA92849 (ANV1), BAB21617 (ANV-2), NP_059946 (ovine AstV), NP_795336 (mink AstV), CAB95000 (porcine AstV), and AAC13556 (feline AstV). Accession numbers for nucleotide sequences are as follows: AF206663 (TAstV-2/NC/99), AY769615 (TAstV1987), AY769616 (TAstV2001), AY720892 (HAstV-1), AY720892 (HAstV-1 ORF2), L23513 (HAstV-1 ORF2), L13745 (HAstV2), L06802 (HAstV-2 ORF2), AF292074 (HAstV-3 ORF1b), AF117209 (HAstV-3 ORF2), AY720891 (HAstV-4), AB025801 (HAstV-4 ORF2), AB025802 (HAstV-4 ORF2), AB025804 (HAstV-4 ORF2), DQ344027 (HAstV-4 ORF2), DQ070852 (HAstV-4 ORF2), Z33883 (HAstV-4 ORF2), DQ028633 (HAstV-5), AB037273 (HAstV-5 ORF2), AB037274 (HAstV-5 ORF2), U15136 (HAstV-5 ORF2), AF292077 (HAstV-6 ORF1b), Z46658 (HAstV-6 ORF2), AF248738 (HAstV-7 ORF1b), Y08632 (HAstV-7 ORF2), AF248738 (HAstV-7 ORF2), AF260508 (HAstV-8), Z66541 (HAstV-8 ORF2), AB031031 (HAstV Katano23-6), AB031030 (HAstV Katano24), AF141381 (HAstV ORF2, unclassified serotype), and AB013618 (HAstV ORF2, unclassified serotype). Accession numbers for novel isolates are as follows: EU143843 (TAstV/AK/98), EU143844 (TAstV/CA/00), EU143845 (TAstV/CO/01), EU143846 (TAstV/MI/01), EU143847 (TAstV/MN/01), EU143848 (TAstV/MO/01), EU143849 (TAstV/PA/01), EU143850 (TAstV/TX/00), and EU143851 (TAstV/VA/99).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Chris Ashwell, Shelly Nolin, and Audrey O'Nan of the
Domestic Animal Genomics Laboratory at North Carolina State
University for their help with sequencing and Sergei L. Kosakovsky
Pond, Barb Sherry, and Liz Turpin for their many helpful discussions
and critical reviews of the manuscript.
This work was supported in part by P30 DK34987 and the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Poultry Science, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7608, Raleigh, NC 27695. Phone: (919) 515-5388. Fax: (919) 515-2625. E-mail:
mdkoci{at}ncsu.edu 
Published ahead of print on 5 March 2008. 

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Journal of Virology, May 2008, p. 5099-5103, Vol. 82, No. 10
0022-538X/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01993-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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