Equine Encephalosis Virus in India, 2008

Abstract

A virus isolated from a sick horse from India in 2008 was confirmed by next-generation sequencing analysis to be equine encephalosis virus (EEV). EEV in India is concerning because several species of Culicoides midge, which play a major role in EEV natural maintenance and transmission, are present in this country.

Keywords: India; NGS; Reovirus; equine; equine encephalosis virus; horse; isolate; next-generation sequencing; viruses.

Figure 1

Sample identification by use of next-generation sequencing. RNA reads from blood (A) and lung (B) samples from horse that died of equine encephalosis in India, 2008. Samples were categorized by using Taxonomer software (11); 0.5% of the reads from blood samples (total reads 2,610,292, average length 137 bp) and 12.5% of the reads from lung samples (total reads 2,125,678, average length 135 bp) were matched to those of reoviruses.

Figure 2

Phylogenetic tree of nonstructural 3 (A) and virus capsid protein 2 (B) genes of equine encephalosis virus. Kimura 2-parameter with (+ I) was used to create the evolutionary distance between 11 sequences of nonstructural 3 genes and virus capsid protein 2 genes from different isolates. Boldface indicates blood and lung samples from dead horse in Pune, India, 2008. GenBank accession numbers are given for reference virus sequences. Scale bars indicate nucleotide substitutions per site.