Molecular characterization of full-length genome of Japanese encephalitis virus (SD08-10) newly isolated in Shandong province

OBJECTIVE: Sequence and analysis the complete nucleotide of the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) newly strain SD08-10, isolated in 2008 in Shandong, China in order to understand the characterization of the virus. METHODS: Overlapping primers were designed according to the full-length genomes in GenBank. RT-PCR was used to amplify the fragments and the full-length genome was obtained by sequencing and splicing. Using the computer software to analysis the nucleic acid data, deduced amino acid sequence and phylogenetic tree, including Clustal X (1.8), DNASTAR, GENEDOC (3.2). RESULTS: The result of sequence analysis shows that the genome of SD08-10 strain was 10 965 nucleotides long. An open reading frame from 96 to 10 392 including 10 296 nucleotides is capable of coding for a 3432 amino acid polyprotein. Compared with the live attenuated vaccine strain SA-14-14-2 in China, there was 1253 nucleotide difference and 82 amino acid divergence. Comparison of the complete genome sequences with 59 different JEV isolates showed a 0.7%-18.9% nucleotide sequence divergence among them, which resulted in 0.1%-5.2% amino acid sequence divergence. Phylogenetic analysis of full-length genome showed that the SD08-10 strain was belonging to genotype I. CONCLUSION: Analysis based on the complete genome sequences of different JEV isolates showed that the SD08-10 strain isolated in 2008 in Shandong was belonging to genotype I and close to SH17M-07 isolated in 2007 in China.