Identification of natural recombinants derived from PCV2a and PCV2b

Genet Mol Res. 2015 Oct 2;14(4):11780-90. doi: 10.4238/2015.October.2.12.

Abstract

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is considered to be the main pathogen in PC-associated diseases, and significantly affects the global pig-producing industry. PCV2 continuously evolves by point mutations and genome recombinations. In the present study, we aimed to further identify recombinant PCV2 strains. We used polymerase chain reaction to detect PCV2 in the carcasses of pigs with suspected infections from different regions of Guangdong Province in China. DNA was extracted from samples with confirmed infection and full- genome amplification, sequencing, phylogenetic tree construction, gene recombination detection, and sequence alignment were performed in gene recombination analysis. Our results show that recombination occurred between the strains SHC (DQ104421) and ZhuJi2003 (AY579893). The recombination resulted in three recombinants: GD003 (KM503044), GD005 (KM487708), and GD008 (KM487709). Further analyses revealed that these novel recombinants appeared to result from recombination between the PCV2a and PCV2b strains, with crossover regions located in ORF2. This study was a comprehensive analysis that used several different methods, which demonstrated that a cluster of PCV2 strains resulted from the same type of inter-genotypic recombination pattern, with a breakpoint in the structural protein coding region. The results of our study provide both information on the recombination mechanism and disease pathogenesis and useful data for the prevention of PCV2 in the swine industry.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Base Sequence
  • Cell Line
  • Circoviridae Infections / pathology
  • Circoviridae Infections / virology*
  • Circovirus / classification
  • Circovirus / genetics*
  • Circovirus / pathogenicity
  • DNA, Viral / genetics*
  • Epithelial Cells / pathology
  • Epithelial Cells / virology
  • Lymph Nodes / pathology
  • Lymph Nodes / virology
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Phylogeny
  • Reassortant Viruses / genetics*
  • Reassortant Viruses / pathogenicity
  • Recombination, Genetic*
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Spleen / pathology
  • Spleen / virology
  • Swine

Substances

  • DNA, Viral