Lineage 1 and 2 Strains of Encephalitic West Nile Virus, Central Europe

Abstract

An encephalitic lineage 2 strain of WNV is observed for the first time outside Africa.

West Nile and Usutu Viruses in Mosquitoes in Spain, 2008–2009

“…The virus isolated was WNV lineage 2, homologous to the strains previously found in Hungary. 3 Recently, in August 2010, a WNV outbreak was detected in Central Macedonia (Northern Greece) with an unexpected lethality in humans; the sequences obtained were more than 99% similar to the WNV lineage 2 found in Hungary and Austria in recent years (ProMED-mail, archive no. 20100914.3312).…”

Rapid fixation of a distinctive sequence motif in the 3′ noncoding region of the clade of West Nile virus invading North America

“…In addition, those WNV sequences falling outside KUNV were not themselves a monophyletic group; rather there were three separate lineages each supported by a highly significant internal branch (Figure 1). Bakonyi et al (2006) showed a similar topology in a phylogeny using a smaller number of sequences. Building on earlier analyses (Lanciotti et al 1999(Lanciotti et al , 2003, Bakonyi et al (2006) proposed five separate lineages in the WNV phylogeny as follows: (1) the WNV sequences clustering with KUNV constitute lineage 1a; (2) KUNV itself constitutes lineage 1b; (3) lineage 2 is the group including AY688948 (Israel); DQ116961 (Hungary); DQ318019 (Senegal), and DQ318020 (Central African Republic); (4) lineage 3 is represented by AY765264 (Czech Republic); and (5) lineage 4 is represented by AY277251 (Russia).…”

“…Phylogenetic analyses by various methods supported the five lineages of West Nile virus (WNV) proposed by Bakonyi et al (2006), one of which corresponds to Kunjin virus (KUNV). Thus, WNV as currently defined, is paraphyletic.…”

“…clade," while recognizing that this clade originated outside North America and that it includes members outside North America. Bakonyi et al (2006) have discussed scenarios whereby this clade may have arisen in central Europe and have been carried from there both to Israel and to New York.…”

“…Accession numbers and geographic origin (including abbreviations for states in the case of isolates from the United States) are given. Lineages are identified following Bakonyi et al (2006). Selected JEV isolates were used as an outgroup to root the tree.…”