Full genome sequence for the African swine fever virus outbreak in the Dominican Republic in 1980

Authors: Spinard Iii, Edward; O'DONNELL, VIVIAN - Animal And Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); VUONO, ELIZABETH - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA); DAVIS, CHARRONE - American Type Culture Collections; RAI, AYUSHI - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE); Ramirez-Medina, Elizabeth; Espinoza, Nallely; VALLADARES, ALYSSA - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE); Borca, Manuel; Gladue, Douglas

Submitted to: Scientific Reports
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/7/2022
Publication Date: 1/19/2023
Citation: Spinard III, E.J., O'Donnell, V., Vuono, E., Davis, C., Rai, A., Ramirez Medina, E., Espinoza, N.N., Valladares, A., Borca, M.V., Gladue, D.P. 2023. Full genome sequence for the African swine fever virus outbreak in the Dominican Republic in 1980. Scientific Reports. 13. Article 1024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25987-5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25987-5

Interpretive Summary: African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes a devastating disease in swine, called African swine fever (ASF), that is currently spreading across Europe, Asia and recently appeared in the Americas. Sequencing ASFV is a difficult task that has only recently been efficiently accomplished by using new sequencing technologies, here we present for the first time the full genome sequence of the ASFV strain that was causing outbreaks in 1980.

Technical Abstract: African swine fever (ASF) is a lethal disease of domestic pigs, geographically expanding as a pandemic, that is affecting countries across Eurasia and severely damaging their swine production industry. After more than 40 years of being absent in the Western hemisphere, in 2020 ASF reappeared in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The recent outbreak strain in the Dominican Republic is a genotype II ASFV and a derivative of the pandemic strain circulating in Asia and Europe. However, to date no full-length genome sequence from either the 1978-1980 or current outbreak has been reported. Here we report the complete genome sequence of an African swine fever virus (ASFV) (DR-1980) that was previously isolated from blood collected in 1980 from the Dominican Republic at the end of the last outbreak, before culling of all swine on the island of Hispaniola, and stored in the Plum Island Animal Disease ASFV repository. A single contig representing the full-length genome (183,687 base pairs) was assembled into a single contig via de novo assembly using both Nanopore and Illumina sequences. Like the 1978-1980 outbreak, DR-1980 is a genotype I virus and, as determined by full genome comparison, a close relative to the sequenced Sardinia viruses that were causing outbreaks at this time.