Isolation and identification of inter-species Enterovirus recombinant genomes

Bentley, Kirsten ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6619-2098, Tee, Han Kang, Pearson, Ashley, Lowry, Kym, Waugh, Sheila, Jones, Sian, Chan, Yoke Fun and Evans, David J. 2021. Isolation and identification of inter-species Enterovirus recombinant genomes. Viruses 13 (12) , 2390. 10.3390/v13122390

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Abstract

Positive-strand RNA virus evolution is partly attributed to the process of recombination. Although common between closely genetically related viruses, such as within species of the Enterovirus genus of the Picornaviridae family, inter-species recombination is rarely observed in nature. Recent studies have shown recombination is a ubiquitous process, resulting in a wide range of recombinant genomes and progeny viruses. While not all recombinant genomes yield infectious progeny virus, their existence and continued evolution during replication have critical implications for the evolution of the virus population. In this study, we utilised an in vitro recombination assay to demonstrate inter-species recombination events between viruses from four enterovirus species, A-D. We show that inter-species recombinant genomes are generated in vitro with polymerase template-switching events occurring within the virus polyprotein coding region. However, these genomes did not yield infectious progeny virus. Analysis and attempted recovery of a constructed recombinant cDNA revealed a restriction in positive-strand but not negative-strand RNA synthesis, indicating a significant block in replication. This study demonstrates the propensity for inter-species recombination at the genome level but suggests that significant sequence plasticity would be required in order to overcome blocks in the virus life cycle and allow for the production of infectious viruses.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Additional Information:	This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/)
Publisher:	MDPI
ISSN:	1999-4915
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 April 2022
Date of Acceptance:	26 November 2021
Last Modified:	02 May 2023 23:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149137

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