Proposed Update to the Taxonomy of Pestiviruses: Eight Additional Species within the Genus Pestivirus, Family Flaviviridae

Abstract

Pestiviruses are plus-stranded RNA viruses belonging to the family Flaviviridae. They comprise several important pathogens like classical swine fever virus and bovine viral diarrhea virus that induce economically important animal diseases. In 2017, the last update of pestivirus taxonomy resulted in demarcation of 11 species designated Pestivirus A through Pestivirus K. Since then, multiple new pestiviruses have been reported including pathogens associated with disease in pigs or small ruminants. In addition, pestivirus sequences have been found during metagenomics analysis of different non-ungulate hosts (bats, rodents, whale, and pangolin), but the consequences of this pestivirus diversity for animal health still need to be established. To provide a systematic classification of the newly discovered viruses, we analyzed the genetic relationship based on complete coding sequences (cds) and deduced polyprotein sequences and calculated pairwise distances that allow species demarcation. In addition, phylogenetic analysis was performed based on a highly conserved region within the non-structural protein NS5B. Taking into account the genetic relationships observed together with available information about antigenic properties, host origin, and characteristics of disease, we propose to expand the number of pestivirus species to 19 by adding eight additional species designated Pestivirus L through Pestivirus S.

Fifty Shades of Erns: Innate Immune Evasion by the Viral Endonucleases of All Pestivirus Species

“…Summary of E rns of different pestiviruses used in this study. GenBank numbers are only given for wild-type (wt) sequences, and the nomenclature of the pestivirus species was used according to [1,25]. The activities of E rns of BVDV-Ncp7 in the RNase-and Mx-assays (from Figure 3 and Figure 5, respectively) were set to 100%.…”

“…The activities of E rns of BVDV-Ncp7 in the RNase-and Mx-assays (from Figure 3 and Figure 5, respectively) were set to 100%. (1) Proposed species according to [25]. (2) Unpublished BoGPV sequence kindly provided by Martin Beer, George Msalya, Silvia Alonzo, and Fred Unger.…”

“…The list of E rns sequences used in this study is summarized in Table 1, with the species annotation according to the established and proposed nomenclature [1,25]. The phylogenetic relationship of the various pestivirus species is described in [41].…”

Identification and molecular characterization of novel viruses in Ugandan cattle

“…Pestiviruses are a group of reemerging viruses that have gained significant interest due to their wide geographical distribution, associated high socioeconomic losses when in livestock, a variety of syndromic manifestations in affected animals, failures in eradication programs, and a growing number of newly identified domestic and wildlife hosts (Blome, Beer, & Wernike, 2017;Postel, Smith, & Becher, 2021). Currently, they are known to infect a variety of artiodactyls, including swine and ruminants, in which they cause mild to severe disease (Schweizer & Peterhans, 2014).…”

The Molecular Basis for Erns Dimerization in Classical Swine Fever Virus

“…The genus Pestivirus originally encompassed only four species, two types of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV-1 and BVDV-2), classical swine fever virus (CSFV) and Border disease virus (BDV) of sheep. Recently, a significant number of further genus members were identified in pigs and a variety of new host species [3,4]. Pestiviruses have single-stranded, positive-sense RNA genomes of ~12.3 kb length that contain one long open reading frame coding for a polyprotein of about 4,000 amino acids.…”