ABSTRACT
Newcastle disease virus with velogenic characteristics circulates in the poultry industry in Mexico and various other American countries. In Mexico, vaccine efficacy testing to obtain commercial registration is reliant on a challenge with a velogenic strain known colloquially as Chimalhuacan due to the site where it was isolated. In this paper, we performed a full genome sequencing of the Chimalhuacan strain. The strain belongs to Class II of APMV, particularly genotype V. The viral RNA genome is 15,192 nt in size and contains six genes: 3' NP-P-M-F-HN-L 5'. The 3' leader sequence is 55 nt in size and the 5' trailer sequence 113 nt. The deduced amino acid sequence confirms a velogenic genotype with four basic amino acids at the cleavage site: (112)RRQKR(↓)F(117). In addition, evolutionary relatedness based on the gene sequence of the fusion protein indicates that this strain is the ancestor of the strains currently circulating in Mexico.
Subject(s)
Evolution, Molecular , Genetic Variation , Genome, Viral , Newcastle disease virus/classification , Newcastle disease virus/genetics , Poultry/virology , RNA, Viral/genetics , 3' Untranslated Regions , 5' Untranslated Regions , Amino Acid Sequence , Animals , Cluster Analysis , Genotype , Mexico , Molecular Sequence Data , Newcastle disease virus/isolation & purification , Phylogeny , Sequence Analysis, DNAABSTRACT
In Mexico, the number of cases of the highly virulent Newcastle disease virus is increasing. In 2005, an outbreak of Newcastle disease occurred on an egg laying hen farm in the state of Puebla despite vaccination with the LaSota strain. Farmers experienced a major drop in egg production as a consequence of a field challenge virus. In this study, we characterize the virus, APMV1/chicken/Mexico/P05/2005, responsible for the outbreak. The virus is categorized as a velogenic virus with an intracranial pathogenicity index of 1.99 and a chicken embryo mean death time of 36 h. The complete genome length of the virus was sequenced as consisting of 15,192 bp. In addition, phylogenetic analysis classified the virus as a member of the class II, genotype V. The highly pathogenic nature of the virus has been linked to the amino acid sequence at the fusion protein cleavage site, which contains multiple basic amino acids (RRQKR↓F).