MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF A NOVEL RAT PARVOVIRUS IN TAIWAN

Abstract

Rodent parvoviruses are among the most prevalent infectious agents in laboratory rodents and have been shown to interfere with in vivo and in vitro research. A newly recognized rat parvovirus (RPV) that is distinct from the prototypic RPV was recently identified in naturally infected laboratory rats in Taiwan. Nucleotide and amino acid sequence comparisons showed that this newly identified variant of RPV is most closely related to rat parvovirus type 1a (RPV-1a) and type 1b (RPV-1b) and is distinctly different from type UT (RPV/UT) and other rodent parvoviruses. This variant was designated rat parvovirus type National Taiwan University 1 (RPV-NTU1). Phylogenetic and sequence analyses revealed that RPV-NTU1 contains conserved open reading frames with an overall genome organization similar to known RPV-1. RPV-NTU1 is the second RPV-1 variant whose full-length molecular characterization has been performed.