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Origin and Possible Genetic Recombination of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus from the First Imported Case in China: Phylogenetics and Coalescence Analysis

2015; American Society for Microbiology; Volume: 6; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1128/mbio.01280-15

2161-2129

Yanqun Wang, Di Liu, Weifeng Shi, Roujian Lu, Wen‐Ching Wang, Yanjie Zhao, Yao Deng, Weimin Zhou, Hongguang Ren, Jun Wu, Yu Wang, Guizhen Wu, George F. Gao, Wenjie Tan,

Viral gastroenteritis research and epidemiology

ABSTRACT The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) causes a severe acute respiratory tract infection with a high fatality rate in humans. Coronaviruses are capable of infecting multiple species and can evolve rapidly through recombination events. Here, we report the complete genomic sequence analysis of a MERS-CoV strain imported to China from South Korea. The imported virus, provisionally named ChinaGD01, belongs to group 3 in clade B in the whole-genome phylogenetic tree and also has a similar tree topology structure in the open reading frame 1a and -b (ORF1ab) gene segment but clusters with group 5 of clade B in the tree constructed using the S gene. Genetic recombination analysis and lineage-specific single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) comparison suggest that the imported virus is a recombinant comprising group 3 and group 5 elements. The time-resolved phylogenetic estimation indicates that the recombination event likely occurred in the second half of 2014. Genetic recombination events between group 3 and group 5 of clade B may have implications for the transmissibility of the virus. IMPORTANCE The recent outbreak of MERS-CoV in South Korea has attracted global media attention due to the speed of spread and onward transmission. Here, we present the complete genome of the first imported MERS-CoV case in China and demonstrate genetic recombination events between group 3 and group 5 of clade B that may have implications for the transmissibility of MERS-CoV.