Figure 2 GETV-V1 particle (black arrow) revealed by transmission
electron microscopy (scale bar = 100 nm)
Excluding the poly(A) tail, the
complete genome sequence of GETV-V1 was 11,689 nucleotides (nt) in
length with a 5′-UTR of 78 nt and 3′-UTR of 402 nt (Table 1). The genome
was similar to that of previously reported GETV strains. Sequence
alignment of GETV-V1 with all GETV sequences available in GenBank
revealed that GETV-V1 shared the highest identity (98.9%) with 16-I-674
(isolated from a horse in Japan in 2016), 98.1% identity with Chinese
strains JL1707, JL1708, 12IH26 and Japanese strain 14-I-605-C2.
Phylogenetic analysis showed that
GETV-V1, together with HB0234, JL1707, JL1708, HNJZ-S1, HNJZ-S2 strains,
was clustered into the Japanese GETV branch (Fig.3). Interestingly,
although the Chinese reference strains were close to GETV-V1
geographically and temporally, they were phylogenetically much closer to
each other, compared with GETV-V1. These results
revealed that the GETV strains
circulating in China are genetically diverse, thus providing a
potential
platform
for evolution.
Table 1 Composition of genome and the encoded proteins of GETV-V1 strain