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ANALYZING PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS AMONG RANAVIRUSES: MYRISTILATED MEMBRANE PROTEIN AND OTHER POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVES TO MAJOR CAPSID PROTEIN**

Abstract

Ranaviruses are globally distributed emerging infections of ectothermic and poikilothermic vertebrates that are responsible for countless morbidity and mortality events around the globe. Therefore, understanding the evolutionary relationships among different strains or isolates of Ranavirus becomes important if we are to predict the consequences of their emergence and propose techniques for reducing the spread of disease caused by Ranavirus infection. Past best practice for investigating the evolutionary histories of different Ranavirus isolates has been based on the major capsid protein (MCP), which is a highly conserved gene. However, this approach does not appear to capture the full sequence diversity of isolates. Twenty-six core genes have been identified for ranaviruses, some of which may better demonstrate the true phylogenetic relationships among different species. Here, we use four core genes, two of which encode the myristilated membrane protein (open reading frame 53R and 2L in Frog virus 3; MMP) and two that encode proteins with unknown functions (ORF 41R and 12L in FV3) as potential alternatives to the MCP gene for constructing phylogenetic trees. We compare trees obtained using full length genomes, only the MCP gene sequences, only the MMP A and B gene sequences, and only the Unknown A and B gene sequences. Trees are built using the Neighbor-Joining method (1000 Bootstraps) and an appropriate nucleotide substitution model using MEGA6. Trees are then compared visually for similarities and differences to determine if any combinations of the genes are suitable alternatives to MCP.

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