A novel mosquito-borne reassortant orbivirus isolated from Xishuangbanna, China 

In this study, we report a novel mosquito-borne reassortant Orbivirus species, which we named Banna orbivirus (BAOV). The virus was isolated from a Culex tritaeniorhynchus pool collected in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China in 2007. Whole genome and phylogenetic analyses revealed that BAOV is a reassortant of several Tibet orbivirus strains. It has a double-stranded RNA genome of 19, 270 bp, containing ten segments (S1–S10) of various lengths. The 10 segments of BAOV had high nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarity with segments of either Fengkai orbivirus or Tibet orbivirus (TIBOV, XZ0906 strain). Phylogenetic analyses indicated that the novel BAOV is a reassortant derived from XZ0906 and Fengkai orbiviruses, and is a Tibet orbivirus. This is the first report of a novel genomic reassortment of Tibet orbivirus isolated in China; these findings contribute to our understanding of the diversity of orbiviruses.

A novel mosquito-borne reassortant orbivirus isolated from Xishuangbanna, China 
Source: Virology News