Infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is a rhabdoviral pathogen that infects wild and cultured salmonid fish throughout the Pacific Northwest of North America. IHNV causes severe epidemics in young fish and can cause disease or occur asymptomatically in adults. In a broad survey of 323 IHNV field isolates, sequence analysis of a 303 nucleotide variable region within the glycoprotein gene revealed a maximum nucleotide diversity of 8?6 %, indicating low genetic diversity overall for this virus. Phylogenetic analysis revealed three major virus genogroups, designated U, M and L, which varied in topography and geographical range. Intragenogroup genetic diversity measures indicated that the M genogroup had three-to fourfold more diversity than the other genogroups and suggested relatively rapid evolution of the M genogroup and stasis within the U genogroup. We speculate that factors influencing IHNV evolution may have included ocean migration ranges of their salmonid host populations and anthropogenic effects associated with fish culture.
INTRODUCTIONInfectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is a rhabdovirus that causes acute, systemic disease in salmonid fish and also occurs in asymptomatic fish hosts. The virus is currently endemic throughout the Pacific Northwest of North America, with a contiguous range extending from Alaska to California and inland to Idaho. Within this geographical area the host range of IHNV includes five species of Pacific salmon, Atlantic salmon and several trout species (Wolf, 1988;Bootland & Leong, 1999). The first reported epidemics of IHNV occurred in sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) fry at Washington and Oregon fish hatcheries during the 1950s (Rucker et al., 1953;Guenther et al., 1959;Wingfield et al., 1969). Surveys indicated that IHNV was endemic in sockeye throughout Alaska by 1974(Grischkowsky & Amend, 1976, but the virus was not widespread in Washington and Oregon through the 1970s (Amend & Wood, 1972; Mulcahy et al., 1980;Pilcher & Fryer, 1980). Subsequently, two virus emergence events occurred in which IHNV became endemic in rainbow trout (O. mykiss) throughout the Hagerman Valley trout farming industry in southern Idaho between 1977(Busch, 1983 and in salmonids of the middle and lower Columbia River basin in the early 1980s (Groberg, 1983;Groberg & Fryer, 1983). In addition to cultured fish, IHNV is endemic in many wild salmonid stocks in the Pacific Northwest (Bootland & Leong, 1999).Due to the extensive economic losses caused by IHNV in fish culture facilities, the virus has been well characterized in biological, immunological and molecular biological studies (for reviews, see Wolf, 1988;Bootland & Leong, 1999). IHNV is the type species of the genus Novirhabdovirus, within the family Rhabdoviridae. Similar to other rhabdoviruses, IHNV has a linear single-stranded, negative-sense RNA genome of approximately 11 000 nucleotides. The IHNV genome contains six genes in the order 39-N-P-M-G-NV-L-59, representing the nucleocapsid, phosphoprotein, matrix protein, glyco...