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ANALYSIS OF THE DEOXYNUCLEOSIDE KINASE GENE FROM RANAVIRUS GENOMES SUGGESTS A NEW MODEL FOR PHYLOGENETIC STUDY

Abstract

Ranavirus is a viral genus in the Iridoviridae containing double stranded DNA viruses responsible for rising mortality rates and population declines of amphibian and reptile populations in diverse regions throughout the world. The disease caused by Ranavirus infection can be quite severe, manifesting as edema, soft tissue hemorrhage, organ failure, and in many cases ultimately the death of the host. Due to geographical dispersement and the diversity of host organisms, determining what strain of Ranavirus is present within a host is important for understanding the threat it may pose. Often, the major capsid protein is used to determine what strain or species a ranavirus isolate belongs to, however, this is a relatively conserved gene across Ranavirus species and may not be as informative as we initially had hoped. We built Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic trees in MEGA 7 for full Ranavirus genomes, the major capsid protein gene and the previously unexplored deoxynucleoside kinase gene, from sequences obtained from ranavirus isolates found on GenBank. The trees produced had high bootstrap values (n = 1000) and showed similar branching patterns between isolates. These finding support the utility of the deoxynucleoside kinase gene as an alternative or additional locus for phylogenetic analysis of Ranavirus isolates.

Acknowledgements

Department of Biology and Physical Sciences, Gordon State College

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