Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (5): 1337-1348.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2021.05.019

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Whole Genome Sequence Analyses of Bluetongue Virus Serotype 7 Strain Isolated from Yunnan Province

LI Zhanhong1, SONG Ziang2, LIAO Defang1, YANG Zhenxing1, XIE Jiarui1, GAO Xiang3, HU Zhongyan3, LI Zhuoran1, LI Huachun1*, YANG Heng1*   

  1. 1. Yunnan Tropical and Subtropical Animal Virus Disease Laboratory, Yunnan Veterinary and Animal Science Institute, Kunming 650224, China;
    2. College of Veterinary Medicine, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, China;
    3. Animal Disease Control Center of Jinghong, Jinghong 666100, China
  • Received:2020-10-06 Online:2021-05-23 Published:2021-05-22

Abstract: Bluetongue virus serotype 7 (BTV-7) was firstly isolated from sentinel cattle in Guangdong Province in 2014; however, the epidemic situation of this serotype was still not clear in China. The objective of the present study is to isolate and analyze the genomic characterization of BTV-7 epideictic in China. Sentinel cattle were placed in Jinghong County, Yunnan Province, and blood samples were collected weekly for arbovirus isolation by inoculating cells. Complete genome sequence of the isolated virus was obtained by high-throughput sequencing. The infection feature of the isolated virus on cells were analyzed by virus plaque assay and proliferation curve analysis. The dynamics of viral nucleic acids and antibodies in the blood of infected sentinel cattle were monitored by serum neutralization test (SNT) and qRT-PCR. In May 2020, a virus strain (V303/YNJH/2020) causing cytopathic effects (CPE) on BHK-21 cells was isolated from the blood sample collected from sentinel cattle, which was serotyped as BTV-7. The genome of V303/YNJH/2020 was 19 154 bp in length (GenBank accession numbers: MW046280 to MW046289), which showed the closest relationship to the BTV-7 GDST008 strain isolated in Guangdong Province in 2014, with nucleic acid (nt) and encoding protein amino acid (aa) sequence identities of segment 1 to 6, segment 9 and 10 higher than 98% and 99%. However, the segment 7 and 8 of V303/YNJH/2020 belonged to the Western topotype, shared nt/aa sequence identities of 71.5%/81.6% and 79.6%/84.4% with the corresponding segment of GSDT008. Results of virus plaque assay and proliferation curve analysis showed that the proliferation ability of V303/YNJH/2020 in BHK-21 cells was significantly robust than that of GDST008. Sentinel cattle infected with V303/YNJH/2020 did not show observed clinical symptoms, but viral nucleic acids in the blood persisted up to 12 weeks, and neutralization antibodies in blood remained at titers of 1:256 during 4-9 weeks after virus infection. The BTV-7 strain V303/YNJH/2020 isolated in Yunnan Province in 2020 has the closest relationship with BTV-7 strain of GDST008, and possessed robust proliferation ability on cells than GDST008. The infection of V303/YNJH/2020 did not cause clinical symptoms in cattle, but viral nucleic acids and neutralization antibodies existed in the blood of infected cattle for a long time. The results of this study laid the foundation for the research on evolution, viral mutation caused by reassortment and pathogenicity of BTV-7 strains.

Key words: bluetongue virus, serotype 7, whole genome sequencing, gene reassortment, infection characteristics

CLC Number: