TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal surveillance of porcine rotavirus b strains from the United States and Canada and in silico identification of antigenically important sites
AU - Shepherd, Frances K.
AU - Chen, Fangzhou
AU - Culhane, Marie R.
AU - Murtaugh, Michael P.
AU - Marthaler, Douglas G.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - Rotavirus B (RVB) is an important swine pathogen, but control and prevention strategies are limited without an available vaccine. To develop a subunit RVB vaccine with maximal effect, we characterized the amino acid sequence variability and predicted antigenicity of RVB viral protein 7 (VP7), a major neutralizing antibody target, from clinically infected pigs in the United States and Canada. We identified genotype-specific antigenic sites that may be antibody neutralization targets. While some antigenic sites had high amino acid functional group diversity, nine antigenic sites were completely conserved. Analysis of nucleotide substitution rates at amino acid sites (dN/dS) suggested that negative selection appeared to be playing a larger role in the evolution of the identified antigenic sites when compared to positive selection, and was identified in six of the nine conserved antigenic sites. These results identified important characteristics of RVB VP7 variability and evolution and suggest antigenic residues on RVB VP7 that are negatively selected and highly conserved may be good candidate regions to include in a subunit vaccine design due to their tendency to remain stable.
AB - Rotavirus B (RVB) is an important swine pathogen, but control and prevention strategies are limited without an available vaccine. To develop a subunit RVB vaccine with maximal effect, we characterized the amino acid sequence variability and predicted antigenicity of RVB viral protein 7 (VP7), a major neutralizing antibody target, from clinically infected pigs in the United States and Canada. We identified genotype-specific antigenic sites that may be antibody neutralization targets. While some antigenic sites had high amino acid functional group diversity, nine antigenic sites were completely conserved. Analysis of nucleotide substitution rates at amino acid sites (dN/dS) suggested that negative selection appeared to be playing a larger role in the evolution of the identified antigenic sites when compared to positive selection, and was identified in six of the nine conserved antigenic sites. These results identified important characteristics of RVB VP7 variability and evolution and suggest antigenic residues on RVB VP7 that are negatively selected and highly conserved may be good candidate regions to include in a subunit vaccine design due to their tendency to remain stable.
KW - Antigenic epitopes
KW - Genetics
KW - Rotavirus B virus
KW - Swine
KW - Vaccine
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U2 - 10.3390/pathogens6040064
DO - 10.3390/pathogens6040064
M3 - Article
C2 - 29207506
AN - SCOPUS:85038091631
SN - 2076-0817
VL - 6
JO - Pathogens
JF - Pathogens
IS - 4
M1 - 64
ER -