Species A rotavirus (RVA) is an important gastrointestinal pathogen that is widely distributed in humans, mammalian animals and birds. The RVA genome consists of eleven double-stranded RNA segments, enabling the generation of novel strains with new pathogenic or antigenic features by genetic reassortment. While reassortants between human and mammalian animal RVAs have been repeatedly described, data on the reassortment potential of avian RVA strains are rare. To investigate genome segment exchanges between avian and mammalian RVA strains, a plasmid-based reverse genetics strategy originally developed for the simian RVA strain SA11 was used here. All eleven genome segments of the chicken RVA strain 02V0002G3 were cloned into similar plasmids as in the SA11 system. However, in contrast to SA11, no infectious virus could be generated by transfection of the eleven 02V0002G3 plasmids into cell culture under the same conditions. In another series of experiments, each of the genome segments of 02V0002G3 was transfected together with the remaining ten genome segments of SA11. Viable mono-reassortants were only retrieved for the avian VP3 and VP4 genes. The reassortant viruses were structurally indistinguishable from their parental viruses, but grew to slightly lower titers in cell culture. The results indicate that the VP3 and VP4 genes, but not the other genes of avian RVA, can functionally substitute their mammalian homologs and create viable reassortants. Further research should focus on the reasons behind the reassortment incompatibility and on the optimization of the system for the generation of viable avian RVA rescued entirely from cloned avian RVA genome segments.

物种轮状病毒（RVA）是一种重要的胃肠道病原体，广泛分布于人类，哺乳动物和鸟类中。RVA基因组由11个双链RNA片段组成，可通过基因重组产生具有新病原性或抗原性特征的新型菌株。尽管已经反复描述了人类和哺乳动物RVA之间的重配体，但有关禽RVA株重配潜力的数据很少。为了研究禽类和哺乳动物RVA株之间的基因组片段交换，此处使用了最初为猿猴RVA株SA11开发的基于质粒的反向遗传学策略。将鸡RVA株02V0002G3的所有11个基因组片段克隆到与SA11系统相似的质粒中。但是，与SA11相比，在相同条件下，将11种02V0002G3质粒转染到细胞培养物中不会产生感染性病毒。在另一系列实验中，将02V0002G3的每个基因组片段与SA11的其余十个基因组片段一起转染。仅针对禽类VP3和VP4基因检索到了可行的单重配体。重配的病毒在结构上与亲本病毒没有区别，但在细胞培养中的滴度逐渐降低。结果表明，VP3和VP4基因，而不是禽RVA的其他基因，可以在功能上替代它们的哺乳动物同源物并产生可行的重配体。