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Evidence for recombination in Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus

2005; Microbiology Society; Volume: 86; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1099/vir.0.80974-0

1465-2099

Alexander N. Lukashev,

Mosquito-borne diseases and control

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus has attracted considerable attention recently and a number of phylogenetic studies have been published, based mostly on partial sequences of S and M RNA segments. In this study, available full-length S, M and L segment sequences of CCHF virus were checked for recombination. Similarity plots and bootscan analysis of the S segment suggested multiple recombination events between southern European, Asian and African CCHF virus strains, with additional evidence provided by phylogenetic trees, the hidden Markov model and probabilistic divergence measures methods. No unambiguous signs of recombination were observed for M and L segments; however, the results did not exclude the possibility of this. These findings, coupled with a recent report on reassortment in CCHF virus, suggest caution when assessing CCHF virus phylogeny based on short sequence fragments.