Reemergence of an atypical bluetongue virus strain in goats, Sardinia, Italy

Abstract

Bluetongue virus (BTV) is the etiologic agent of bluetongue, a WOAH (founded as Office International des Épizooties, OIE)-notifiable economically important disease of ruminants. BTV is transmitted by Culicoides biting midges and 24 different "classical" serotypes have been reported to date. In recent years, several putative novel BTV serotypes, often referred to as "atypical" BTVs, have been documented. These are characterized by unusual biological characteristics, most notably avirulence and vector-independent transmission. Here, we describe the recurrence of such an atypical virus strain BTV-X ITL2021 detected in goats six years after its first discovery in Sardinia, Italy. Combined serological and genome analysis results clearly suggest that the two strains belong to the same BTV serotype. However, unlike the 2015 strain, BTV-X ITL2021 was successfully isolated in BSR cell-culture allowing further serological characterization. Lastly, seropositivity for BTV-X ITL2021 was detected by virus-neutralization in approximately 74% of animals tested, suggesting that this atypical BTV serotype has been circulating undetected in asymptomatic animals for years.

Keywords: Atypical serotype; Bluetongue virus; Genome analysis; Goats; Sardinia.