Intersegmental recombination...emergence of a highly pathogenic H7N3 BC

[Sally Furniss]

Intersegmental recombination between the haemagglutinin and matrix genes was responsible for the emergence of a highly pathogenic H7N3 avian influenza virus in British Columbia

<nobr>John Pasick¹</nobr>, <nobr>Katherine Handel¹</nobr>, <nobr>John Robinson²</nobr>, <nobr>John Copps¹</nobr>, <nobr>Deidre Ridd¹</nobr>, <nobr>Kevin Hills¹</nobr>, <nobr>Helen Kehler¹</nobr>, <nobr>Colleen Cottam-Birt¹</nobr>, <nobr>James Neufeld¹</nobr>, <nobr>Yohannes Berhane¹</nobr> and <nobr>Stefanie Czub¹</nobr>
[SIZE=-1] ¹ Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, 1015 Arlington Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3E 3M4
² Animal Health Centre, British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Food, 1767 Angus Campbell Road, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada V3G 2M3 [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Correspondence
John Pasick
jpasick@inspection.gc.ca<script type="text/javascript"><!-- var u = "jpasick", d = "inspection.gc.ca"; document.getElementById("em0").innerHTML = '<a href="mailto:' + u + '@' + d + '">' + u + '@' + d + '<\/a>'//--></script>[/SIZE]
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ABSTRACT
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In February 2004 a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)outbreak erupted in British Columbia. Investigations indicatedthat the responsible HPAI H7N3 virus emerged suddenly from alow pathogenic precursor. Analysis of the haemagglutinin (HA)genes of the low and high pathogenic viruses isolated from theindex farm revealed the only difference to be a 21 nt insertat the HA cleavage site of the highly pathogenic avian influenzavirus. It was deduced that this insert most probably arose asa result of non-homologous recombination between the HA andmatrix genes of the same virus. Over the course of the outbreak,a total of 37 isolates with, and 3 isolates without insertswere characterized. The events described here appear very similarto those which occurred in Chile in 2002 where the virulenceshift of another H7N3 virus was attributed to non-homologousrecombination between the HA and nucleoprotein genes.
<!-- null --> Supplementary material of the gross and microscopic lesionsproduced in experimentally infected chickens can be found inJGV Online.

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/86/3/727?ck=nck

 

[gsgs]

Re: Intersegmental recombination...emergence of a highly pathogenic H7N3 BC

uhh, intersegmental recombination, strange thing.
First Chile, now British Columbia.
I wonder, whether it happens elsewhere (outside the Cleavage site)

Also Italy 1999/2000, when LP also became HP after 7months,
but no such recombination
was found yet in Italy, AFAIK.