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G1-like PB2 gene improves virus replication and competitive advantage of H9N2 virus

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Abstract

H9N2 subtype avian influenza virus has dramatically evolved and undergone extensive reassortment since its emergence in early 1990s in China. The genotype S (G57), emerging in 2007 with the substitution of F98-like PB2 and M gene by G1-like ones, has become the overwhelming predominant genotype for the past 11 years since 2010. Here, we found that virus with G1-like PB2 were more efficient in protein expression and in infectious virus production than that with F98-like PB2 gene. By coinfected MDCK cells with the reassortant virus, more survival opportunity for viruses with G1-like PB2 than that of F/98-like was observed. Besides, in animal experiments, we found that the G1-like PB2 increases virus infectivity, replication, and virus shedding of H9N2 in chickens. Our results suggested that the substitution of G1-like PB2 play important role in promoting the fitness of genotype S H9N2 virus in China.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analyses during the current study are available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

Not Applicable.

Funding

This work was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (BK20170068), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31702245,31772755), the National Key Research and Development project of China (2016YFD0500202), the Earmarked fund for China Agriculture Research System (CARS-40), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), the Jiangsu Qinglan project, and the “high-end talent support program” of Yangzhou University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Animal Infectious Disease Laboratory, School of Veterinary Medicine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China

    Xiuli Li, Shumiao Qiao, Ying Zhao, Min Gu, Ruyi Gao, Kaituo Liu, Zhichuang Ge, Jing Ma, Xiaoquan Wang, Jiao Hu, Shunlin Hu, Xiaowen Liu, Sujuan Chen, Daxin Peng & Xiufan Liu

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China

    Xiufan Liu

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  1. Xiuli Li
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Contributions

XL and XL conceived of or designed study; XL, SQ, YZ, RG, and JM performed research; MG, XW, JH, SH, and XL analyzed data. XL, ZG, KL, SC, and DP wrote the paper. All of the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiufan Liu.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Human and animal rights

This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China. All animal experiments were approved by the Jiangsu Administrative Committee for Laboratory Animals (Permission number: SYXK-SU-2017-0007) and by the Institutional Biosafety Committee of Yangzhou University and complied with the guidelines of Jiangsu laboratory animal welfare and ethics of Jiangsu Administrative Committee of Laboratory Animals.

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The present study did not involve any human subject and therefore, no need of informed consent.

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Edited by Zhen F. Fu.

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Li, X., Qiao, S., Zhao, Y. et al. G1-like PB2 gene improves virus replication and competitive advantage of H9N2 virus. Virus Genes 57, 521–528 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-021-01870-9

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