Food Animal Health Research Program, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Ohio State University, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster, OH 44691, USA.
Viral Genomics Group, The J. Craig Venter Institute, 9704 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
J Gen Virol. 2011 Jun;92(Pt 6):1369-1379. doi: 10.1099/vir.0.025353-0. Epub 2011 Feb 23.
A coronavirus (CoV) previously shown to be associated with catarrhal gastroenteritis in mink (Mustela vison) was identified by electron microscopy in mink faeces from two fur farms in Wisconsin and Minnesota in 1998. A pan-coronavirus and a genus-specific RT-PCR assay were used initially to demonstrate that the newly discovered mink CoVs (MCoVs) were members of the genus Alphacoronavirus. Subsequently, using a random RT-PCR approach, full-genomic sequences were generated that further confirmed that, phylogenetically, the MCoVs belonged to the genus Alphacoronavirus, with closest relatedness to the recently identified but only partially sequenced (fragments of the polymerase, and full-length spike, 3c, envelope, nucleoprotein, membrane, 3x and 7b genes) ferret enteric coronavirus (FRECV) and ferret systemic coronavirus (FRSCV). The molecular data presented in this study provide the first genetic evidence for a new coronavirus associated with epizootic catarrhal gastroenteritis outbreaks in mink and demonstrate that MCoVs possess high genomic variability and relatively low overall nucleotide sequence identities (91.7 %) between contemporary strains. Additionally, the new MCoVs appeared to be phylogenetically distant from human (229E and NL63) and other alphacoronaviruses and did not belong to the species Alphacoronavirus 1. It is proposed that, together with the partially sequenced FRECV and FRSCV, they comprise a new species within the genus Alphacoronavirus.
一种先前被认为与水貂（Mustela vison）卡他性胃肠炎有关的冠状病毒，于 1998 年在威斯康星州和明尼苏达州的两个毛皮养殖场的水貂粪便中通过电子显微镜被鉴定出来。最初使用泛冠状病毒和属特异性 RT-PCR 检测方法证明，新发现的水貂冠状病毒（MCoVs）是α冠状病毒属的成员。随后，通过随机 RT-PCR 方法生成了全长基因组序列，进一步证实了 MCoVs 在系统发育上属于α冠状病毒属，与最近鉴定的但仅部分测序的（聚合酶、全长刺突蛋白、3c、包膜、核蛋白、膜、3x 和 7b 基因的片段）雪貂肠冠状病毒（FRECV）和雪貂系统性冠状病毒（FRSCV）最为密切相关。本研究提供的分子数据首次为与水貂流行性卡他性胃肠炎暴发相关的新型冠状病毒提供了遗传证据，并表明 MCoVs 具有高基因组变异性和相对较低的整体核苷酸序列同一性（91.7%）在当代菌株之间。此外，新的 MCoVs 在系统发育上似乎与人类（229E 和 NL63）和其他α冠状病毒相距甚远，不属于α冠状病毒 1 种。因此，建议将其与部分测序的 FRECV 和 FRSCV 一起，在α冠状病毒属中构成一个新的种。
