Key Laboratory of Systems Biology in Universities of Shandong, College of Life Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e49992. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049992. Epub 2012 Dec 4.
Rabies virus (RABV) causes severe neurological disease and death. As an important mechanism for generating genetic diversity in viruses, homologous recombination can lead to the emergence of novel virus strains with increased virulence and changed host tropism. However, it is still unclear whether recombination plays a role in the evolution of RABV. In this study, we isolated and sequenced four circulating RABV strains in China. Phylogenetic analyses identified a novel lineage of hybrid origin that comprises two different strains, J and CQ92. Analyses revealed that the virus 3' untranslated region (UTR) and part of the N gene (approximate 500 nt in length) were likely derived from Chinese lineage I while the other part of the genomic sequence was homologous to Chinese lineage II. Our findings reveal that homologous recombination can occur naturally in the field and shape the genetic structure of RABV populations.
狂犬病病毒（RABV）可引起严重的神经疾病和死亡。作为病毒产生遗传多样性的重要机制，同源重组可导致毒力增加和宿主嗜性改变的新型病毒株的出现。然而，重组是否在 RABV 的进化中起作用尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们分离并测序了中国的四种循环 RABV 株。系统进化分析确定了一种新的杂交起源谱系，该谱系由两种不同的毒株 J 和 CQ92 组成。分析表明，病毒 3'非翻译区（UTR）和 N 基因的一部分（约 500 个核苷酸长）可能来自中国 I 谱系，而基因组序列的其他部分与中国 II 谱系同源。我们的研究结果表明，同源重组可以在野外自然发生，并塑造 RABV 群体的遗传结构。
