Sequencing and analysis of complete genome of rabies viruses isolated from Chinese Ferret-Badger and dog in Zhejiang Province.

Based on sequencing the full-length genomes of four Chinese Ferret-Badger and dog,we analyze the properties of rabies viruses genetic variation in molecular level,get the information about rabies viruses prevalence and variation in Zhejiang,and enrich the genome database of rabies viruses street strains isolated from China.Rabies viruses in suckling mice were isolated,overlapped fragments were amplified by RT-PCR and full-length genomes were assembled to analyze the nucleotide and deduced protein similarities and phylogenetic analyses from Chinese Ferret-Badger,dog,sika deer,vole,used vaccine strain were determined.The four full-length genomes were sequenced completely and had the same genetic structure with the length of 11,923 nts or 11,925 nts including 58 nts-Leader,1353 nts-NP,894 nts-PP,609 nts-MP,1575 nts-GP,6386 nts-LP,and 2,5,5 nts-intergenic regions(IGRs),423 nts-Pseudogene-like sequence(Ψ),70 nts-Trailer.The four full-length genomes were in accordance with the properties of Rhabdoviridae Lyssa virus by BLAST and multi-sequence alignment.The nucleotide and amino acid sequences among Chinese strains had the highest similarity,especially among animals of the same species.Of the four full-length genomes,the similarity in amino acid level was dramatically higher than that in nucleotide level,so the nucleotide mutations happened in these four genomes were most synonymous mutations.Compared with the reference rabies viruses,the lengths of the five protein coding regions had no change,no recombination,only with a few point mutations.It was evident that the five proteins appeared to be stable.The variation sites and types of the four genomes were similar to the reference vaccine or street strains.And the four strains were genotype 1 according to the multi-sequence and phylogenetic analyses,which possessed the distinct district characteristics of China.Therefore,these four rabies viruses are likely to be street viruses already existing in the natural world.