Red sea bream iridovirus (RSIV) is the causative agent of the iridoviral disease with high mortality rates in cultured fish. Our laboratory reported the first case of RSIV infection in India which resulted in mass mortalities of Asian seabass, Lates calcarifer. The RSIV-LC strain isolated from infected fish was subjected to complete genome sequencing and analysis. The complete genome of RSIV-LC was found to be of 111,557 bp in size having a G + C content of 53 %. The complete genome has 114 open reading frames (ORFs) of which 38 ORFs were predicted as functional proteins while the rest were hypothetical proteins. Among the ORFs 26 were found to be core genes reported earlier to be homologous in iridovirus complete genomes. Phylogenetic tree constructed based on the 26 core gene sequences, major capsid protein and ATPase genes revealed RSIV-LC in this study to belong to the genus Megalocytivirus of the RSIV-Genotype II. The present study provides the first report of the complete genome sequence and annotation of the RSIV strain isolated from India.

红鲷虹彩病毒 (RSIV) 是虹膜病毒病的病原体，在养殖鱼类中死亡率很高。我们的实验室报告了印度首例 RSIV 感染病例，导致亚洲鲈鱼（Lates calcarifer）大量死亡. 从受感染的鱼中分离出的 RSIV-LC 菌株进行了完整的基因组测序和分析。发现 RSIV-LC 的完整基因组大小为 111,557 bp，G + C 含量为 53%。完整的基因组有 114 个开放阅读框 (ORF)，其中 38 个 ORF 被预测为功能性蛋白质，而其余为假设蛋白质。在ORFs中，发现26个是早先报道的在虹彩病毒完整基因组中同源的核心基因。进化树构建了一个基于26核心基因序列，主要衣壳蛋白和ATP酶基因透露RSIV-LC在这项研究属于属Megalocytivirus的RSIV基因型II的。本研究提供了从印度分离的 RSIV 菌株的完整基因组序列和注释的第一份报告。