Evidence for natural recombination between mink enteritis virus and canine parvovirus

Abstract

A virus was isolated from mink showing clinical and pathological signs of enteritis in China. This virus, designated MEV/LN-10, was identified as mink enteritis virus (MEV) based on its cytopathic effect in the feline F81 cell line, the hemagglutination (HA) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay, electron microscopy (EM) and animal infection experiments. The complete viral genome was cloned and sequenced. Phylogenetic and recombination analyses on the complete MEV/LN-10 genome showed evidence of recombination between MEV and canine parvovirus (CPV). The genome was composed of the NS1 gene originating from CPV while the VP1 gene was of MEV origin. This is the first demonstration of recombination between a CPV and MEV in nature. Our findings not only provide valuable evidence indicating that recombination is an important genetic mechanism contributing to the variation and evolution of MEV, but also that heterogeneous recombination can occur in the feline parvovirus subspecies.

Figure 1

Recombination breakpoint as identified by GARD. The program identified nucleotide position 2,686 as a putative breakpoint for recombination.

Figure 2

Phylogenetic analysis of MEV/LN-10. Nucleotide sequences (A) 1–2,685 and (B) 2,686–4,269 were separately analyzed using the Maximum Likelihood method and Tamura-Nei model in MEGA5. Groupings were tested by bootstrapping 2000 replicates and support percentages greater than 70% are marked at the corresponding nodes. Isolated MEV/LN-10 is marked by solid triangles.