Novel Arterivirus Associated with Outbreak of Fatal Encephalitis in European Hedgehogs, England, 2019

Abstract

In the fall of 2019, a fatal encephalitis outbreak led to the deaths of >200 European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) in England. We used next-generation sequencing to identify a novel arterivirus with a genome coding sequence of only 43% similarity to existing GenBank arterivirus sequences.

Keywords: Arteriviridae; England; Erinaceus europaeus; European hedgehog; arterivirus; meningitis/encephalitis; outbreak; viruses; zoonoses.

Figure 1

Phylogenetic analysis of the coding sequence of hedgehog arterivirus 1. The virus genome was aligned by using the MegAlign software of the DNASTAR Lasergene Core Suite (DNASTAR, Inc., https://www.dnastar.com), and phylogenetic analysis was performed by using MEGA 5.2 software (https://www.megasoftware.net). The rooted tree was constructed by using the neighbor-joining method and 1,000 bootstrap replications. Each virus on the tree is represented by its GenBank accession number and name. Designation of subfamilies was conducted as outlined in the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses 2018 release (https://talk.ictvonline.org/ictv-reports). Coronaviruses are included as an outgroup. Solid black circle and bold indicate strain detected in this study. Numbers along branches are bootstrap values. Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.

Figure 2

Genomic organization of hedgehog arterivirus-1. The genome arrangement resembles those of classical arteriviruses with open reading frames (ORFs) 1a/1b, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 that encode the polyproteins 1a/1ab, envelope protein, glycoproteins 2b–5, and membrane and nucleocapsid proteins, respectively. ORF1a and ORF1b are joined through a −1 ribosomal frameshift, encoding replicase precursor polyproteins pp1a/pp1ab. UTR, untranslated region.