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1 Institut für Virologie und Antivirale Therapie, Universitätsklinikum Jena, Hans Knöll Str. 2, D-07745 Jena, Germany
2 Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Institute of Molecular Biology, Südufer 10, D-17493 Greifswald - Insel Riems, Germany
3 IDT Biologika GmbH, Bereich Forschung und Entwicklung, Am Pharmapark, D-06861 Dessau-Rosslau, Germany
Correspondence
Roland Zell
Roland.Zell{at}med.uni-jena.de
| ABSTRACT |
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Supplementary material is available with the online version of this paper.
| INTRODUCTION |
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| METHODS |
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Virus RNA preparation and sequencing.
For sequencing of the viral genome, total RNA was prepared from virus-infected MDCK cells using the RNeasy Mini and QIAshredder kits (Qiagen). Reverse transcription was conducted with a primer specific to the 3'-end of genomic RNA, 20 U reverse transcriptase (Fermentas) and 5 µg RNA in a final reaction volume of 20 µl. Specific oligonucleotide primers (Schmidtke et al., 2006
) and cDNA were used for the amplification of DNA employing Pfu polymerase (Promega). Amplification products were subjected to agarose gel electrophoresis and extracted employing a QIAquick Gel Extraction kit (Qiagen). Purified amplification products were sequenced by cycle sequencing using the CEQ DTCS Quick Start kit (Beckman Coulter) and analysed on a CEQ8000 sequencer (Beckman Coulter). The nucleotide sequences were submitted to GenBank (accession nos EU478795
[GenBank]
–EU478849
[GenBank]
).
Phylogenetic and molecular genetic analyses.
Nucleotide sequences were aligned manually with the help of MEGA version 4 (Tamura et al., 2007
). For tree inference, Bayesian Metropolis-coupled Markov chain (MCMC) analysis was conducted with MrBayes 3.1 (Ronquist & Huelsenbeck, 2003
). Four chains were calculated until convergence was reached (substitution model: GTR+G+I, four gamma categories, chain length: 1 900 000 generations). The optimal substitution model was selected in a hierarchical likelihood ratio test on the basis of the Akaike information criterion (AIC) using MODELTEST (Posada & Crandall, 1998
). The tree was visualized with TreeView 1.6.6 (Page, 1996
). Divergence times within the European swFLUAVs were inferred using Bayesian MCMC analysis and a relaxed clock model as implemented in BEAST 1.4.7 (Drummond & Rambaut, 2007
). The dataset was analysed using the GTR+G+I substitution model, four gamma categories and a chain length of 50 000 000 generations. Two partitions into codon positions (SRD06 model, default unlink parameters) and a relaxed clock (uncorrelated lognormal) were assumed. Log parameters were sampled every 1000 generations. A maximum credibility tree was constructed with FigTree 1.1.2 (Drummond & Rambaut, 2007
). Posterior probabilities of nodes, node ages (node heights) and branch lengths were displayed. Natural selection acting on each amino acid site was inferred using codon-based maximum-likelihood methods (the single likelihood ancestor counting method, SLAC; the fixed effects likelihood method, FEL; and the internal fixed effects likelihood method, IFEL) provided by the Datamonkey web server (http://www.datamonkey.org; Kosakovsky Pond & Frost, 2005
). Positive selection (non-synonymous substitution rate greater synonymous substitution rate, dN>dS) and negative selection (dN<dS) was estimated as dN–dS differences. In order to compare the results of different methods, normalized dN–dS values [(dN–dS)/(codon tree length)] are presented. Co-evolution of amino acid sites was analysed with the Spidermonkey/BGM tool (Poon et al., 2007
) of the Datamonkey web server. This software tool performs a Bayesian graphical model (BGM) analysis on aligned nucleotide sequences. Genotype determination was conducted with the FluGenome web server (http://www.FluGenome.org; Lu et al., 2007
).
Antiviral testing.
The plaque reduction assay was used for antiviral testing. It was conducted as previously described (Schmidtke et al., 2006
). Briefly, MDCK cells were infected and overlaid with 0.4 % agar supplemented with 0.001–10 µg amantadine ml–1. At day 3–4, the plaque number was determined and the IC50 was calculated. Rescued viruses were examined for amantadine susceptibility by virus titration in the presence of various amantadine concentrations according to Masuda et al. (2000)
. Amantadine resistance was defined as an at least 50-fold increase of IC50.
Reverse genetics.
For the generation of recombinant viruses, the M segments of two H1N1 viruses, A/sw/Potsdam/15/81 (amantadine-susceptible) and A/sw/Belzig/2/01 (amantadine-resistant), were amplified. PCR fragments were purified and cloned into pHW2000 (Hoffmann et al., 2000
). The pHW plasmid system allows the rescue of recombinant A/WSN/33 (H1N1). Mixed cultures of 293T/MDCK cells were transfected with mixtures of eight plasmids (total 2 µg DNA) using FuGENE (Roche). Plasmids pHW18-1 to -8 served as positive control. Viable recombinant virus (either reassortant virus or control virus A/WSN/33) was rescued and passaged ten times in MDCK cells to ascertain viability. Reassortant virus, A/WSN/33 and both parental (non-recombinant) viruses were assayed for amantadine resistance phenotype.
| RESULTS |
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Antiviral testing
In previous studies amantadine resistance was deduced from genetic data and verified for some (arbitrarily) selected strains by further antiviral testing (e.g. Bright et al., 2005
; Deyde et al., 2007
; Hurt et al., 2007
). In analogy, we confirmed the amantadine resistance phenotype of a representative fraction of our collection (29/70 randomly selected isolates=41 %) using the plaque reduction assay as described (Schmidtke et al., 2006
). As expected, amantadine resistance correlates with the S31N substitution (Supplementary Table S1): all susceptible strains have a serine codon at position 31, whereas the resistant strains have the S31N substitution. Antiviral analysis confirmed the observation that strains isolated after 1989 are amantadine-resistant, whereas the elder strains are amantadine-susceptible (Table 1
).
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Natural selection of the M2 open reading frame
Codon-based tests were performed to identify natural selection at single amino acid sites. Positive (diversifying) selection, i.e. excess of non-synonymous substitutions, and negative (purifying) selection, i.e. excess of synonymous substitutions, were investigated using different maximum-likelihood methods (SLAC, FEL and IFEL). Several codons were suggested to be restrained by negative selection: (i) codons 30, 31 and 34 which confer amantadine resistance and (ii) codons 32, 50, 51 58, 67 and 71 (Supplementary Table S2, available in JGV Online). Positive selection was suggested for codon 19 in the IFEL method. The corresponding P-values were <0.05, indicating that less than 5 % of neutrally evolving sites may be incorrectly classified as selected. All three methods showed a similar pattern of dN–dS differences. However, the SLAC and IFEL methods were found to be more conservative, resulting in fewer suggestions for natural selection (Fig. 3
, left panel). In addition, 46 of 97 codons (47.4 %) were invariant. The mean substitution rate of this dataset was 0.54 substitutions/site and the mean dN/dS was 0.60. For comparison, a dataset comprising 80 unique M2 sequences of human H1N1 and H3N2 influenza virus isolates was also included in this analysis (Supplementary Table S2, Fig. 3
, right panel). The mean substitution rate of this dataset was slightly greater (0.67 substitutions/site), but the mean dN/dS value was smaller (0.44) indicating some more synonymous substitutions. For this dataset, positive selection of codons 28, 36, 54, 89 and 93 and negative selection of codons 2, 25, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 45, 51, 53, 58, 59, 65, 69, 71, 75 and 96 was suggested; 33 % of the codons were invariant. Negative selection of codons 30, 32, 34, 51, 58 and 71 was suggested in both datasets, but the overall patterns of the dN–dS values along the open reading frames differ at codon 2, 11–28 and 54 (Fig. 3
), indicating diverse selective forces which act on the M2 proteins of porcine and human influenza A viruses.
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| DISCUSSION |
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Spontaneous emergence of amantadine-resistant porcine influenza viruses in the absence of the drug is a rare event. Worldwide, only three independent incidents have been documented. Beside the emergence in Europe, only two clades were found in an analysis of available sequence data (approx. 180 sequences) of classical swine isolates (H1N1) and reassortant H1N2, H3N2 and H3N1 strains derived thereof (data not shown). As there are no indications that pigs ever have been treated with amantadine in Europe, the emergence of amantadine resistance has very likely a natural cause. The reason for the astounding spread of resistant porcine virus strains remains elusive, but may not be unusual. In recent years, the prevalence of adamantane-resistant human influenza viruses has been increasing rapidly (compare Bright et al., 2005
; Deyde et al., 2007
). Previous investigations indicate that two mechanisms may account for the amantadine resistance of human FLUAVs: spontaneous substitutions occurring with low incidence (Ziegler et al., 1999
), and the selection of resistant variants upon antiviral therapy (Shiraishi et al., 2003
). Interestingly, excessive use of adamantane inhibitors may not explain upsurge of resistant human strains in many countries. Simonsen et al. (2007)
, observed that a 4+4 segment reassortment event favoured resistant strains due to fitness-enhancing mutations at other genomic sites. For swFLUAVs, the sequence data do not allow the demonstration of such a hitchhiking effect (data not shown). Also, selection of resistant strains upon antiviral therapy appears to be an unlikely mechanism, but a bottleneck effect might be a reasonable explanation (Domingo & Holland, 1997
).
Our codon-based tests for natural selection revealed that codons 30, 31 and 34, which are known to confer amantadine resistance, are likely to be negatively selected. For codon 31, it appears that only four states are allowed: either AGT/C (encoding serine; amantadine-susceptible) or AAT/C (encoding asparagine; amantadine-resistant). The remaining four serine codons (UCA, UCG, UCC, UCT), though coding for the wild-type amino acid, were not observed – neither in porcine nor in human influenza viruses. One may argue that the S31N substitution is the only viable mutation at this site which maintains both structural constraints (i.e. formation of a proper transmembrane helix which is able to tetramerize) and functional constraints of the M2 protein (i.e. proton channel activity even in the presence of amantadine). Substitutions of alanine 30 and glycine 34 were not observed in the swFLUAVs (Supplementary Table S1).
A concerning issue is the possibility that the swFLUAV M segment might be introduced into human influenza viruses by reassortment. In order to substantiate the biological significance of this hypothetical threat, we demonstrate the viability of A/WSN/33 reassortants with M segments of European swFLUAVs. Accordingly, the amantadine susceptibility of the reassortant was altered (Fig. 4
), indicating amantadine resistance in vivo. Whereas the M segment of the European swFLUAVs belongs to genotype F, all human subtypes have a M segment of the B genotype (Fig. 1
). The viability of our rescued H1N1 reassortant along with its amantadine resistance suggests a possible scenario in which the M segments of human viruses could be replaced by an avian-like M segment in the field. Beside circulating amantadine resistant human H3N2 and H1N1 viruses, human–swine reassortants with an avian-like M segment could be an additional, however yet unforeseeable menace. A similar concern was also expressed by Claas et al. (1994)
and Gregory et al. (2001)
. Therefore, both intense surveillance and elucidation of the acting molecular selection mechanisms are indispensable.
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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Received 11 September 2008;
accepted 30 November 2008.
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