Characterization of Nipah virus from naturally infected Pteropus vampyrus bats, Malaysia

Abstract

We isolated and characterized Nipah virus (NiV) from Pteropus vampyrus bats, the putative reservoir for the 1998 outbreak in Malaysia, and provide evidence of viral recrudescence. This isolate is monophyletic with previous NiVs in combined analysis, and the nucleocapsid gene phylogeny species.

Figure 1

Phylogenetic position of Nipah virus (NiV) isolate from Pteropus vampyrus bats (box) in combined analysis of nucleocapsid, phosphoprotein, matrix, fusion, and attachment gene open reading frames (8.3 kb). Maximum likelihood tree, general time reversible + Γ model, 1,000 bootstrap replicates. NiV P. vampyrus is distinct but forms a clade with other NiV sequences from Malaysia, and the isolate from Bangladesh is more distantly related and basal to this group. GenBank accession numbers are shown for all comparison isolates; the polymerase gene is missing for AF376747 and thus that isolate is excluded from analysis. Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.

Figure 2

Partial nucleocapsid gene (358 bp) maximum-likelihood tree for all available Nipah virus (NiV) sequences (seqs) in GenBank, showing a high level of NiV sequence diversity in Pteropus lylei bat isolates from Thailand. NiV P. vampyrus (box) is most closely related to AY858110 from P. lylei bats and forms a large clade that includes other P. lylei bat isolates and all NiV sequences from Malaysia. GenBank accession numbers are given for NiV isolates from pigs in Malaysia (AJ627196, Tambun; AJ564621, Sg. Buloh; and AJ564622, Seremban), humans in Malaysia (AJ564623, AF212302, AY029767, and AY029768), humans in Bangladesh (AY988601), P. hypomelanus bats in Malaysia (AF376747), P. lylei bats in Cambodia (nucleocapsid gene-AY858110, DQ061851–58, EF070182–90, EU603724–58, EU620498, and EU624735–37), and Hendra virus from Australia (AF017149). Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.