Skip to main content
Genome Announcements logoLink to Genome Announcements
. 2015 Mar 19;3(2):e00089-15. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.00089-15

Genome Sequence of Bivens Arm Virus, a Tibrovirus Belonging to the Species Tibrogargan virus (Mononegavirales: Rhabdoviridae)

Michael Lauck a, Shuǐqìng Yú b, Yíngyún Caì b, Lisa E Hensley b, Charles Y Chiu c, David H O’Connor a, Jens H Kuhn b,
PMCID: PMC4394750  PMID: 25792044

Abstract

The new rhabdoviral genus Tibrovirus currently has two members, Coastal Plains virus and Tibrogargan virus. Here, we report the coding-complete genome sequence of a putative member of this genus, Bivens Arm virus. A genomic comparison reveals Bivens Arm virus to be closely related to, but distinct from, Tibrogargan virus.

GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

The mononegaviral family Rhabdoviridae currently includes 11 genera (1). The recently established genus Tibrovirus includes two species, Tibrogargan virus and Coastal Plains virus, for Tibrogargan virus (TIBV) and Coastal Plains virus (CPV) members, respectively (1). TIBV was isolated in 1976 from biting midges of the species Culicoides brevitarsis Kieffer (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) in Peachester, Queensland, Australia (2). CPV was isolated in 1981 from the blood of a healthy steer at the Coastal Plains Research Station, Northern Territory, Australia (3). Antigenic comparisons established the relationship between TIBV and CPV (3). Later genomic characterization revealed them to possess three unique putative genes (designated U1, U2, and U3) and to be distinct members of the dimarhabdovirus supergroup (4). In 1989, Gibbs et al. (5) reported the isolation of Bivens Arm virus (BAV) from biting midges of the species Culicoides insignis Lutz captured in 1981 in FL, and they established an antigenic relationship between this virus, TIBV, CPV, and another putative tibrovirus, Sweetwater Branch virus (5). Serological surveys suggest that all four viruses are primarily transmitted by culicoids that dwell among bovids (2, 3, 57). None of the four viruses are known to cause disease in any animal, but a virus more distantly related to them, Bas-Congo virus, is speculated to infect and cause severe disease in humans (8).

To evaluate whether BAV is indeed a tibrovirus, we obtained the BAV UF 10 isolate from the World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses (WRCEVA) (Galveston, TX) and grew a virus stock in Aedes albopictus C6/36 cells (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Manhattan, KS) cultured at 28°C and 5% CO2 in Eagle’s minimum essential medium (Lonza, Allendale, NJ) containing 2% fetal bovine serum (Sigma, St. Louis, MO). Virus RNA isolation and cDNA synthesis from cleared culture supernatants were performed as previously described (9). The Nextera XT kit (Illumina, San Diego, CA) was used to prepare deep-sequencing libraries. Sequencing was performed on a MiSeq (Illumina, San Diego, CA). CLC Genomics Workbench 7.5 (CLC bio, Aarhus, Denmark) was used to remove low-quality (Phred score, <Q30) and short reads (<100 bp). The remaining reads were mapped to the genome of Tibrogargan virus isolate CS(IRO) 132 (GenBank accession no. GQ294472.1, RefSeq no. NC_020804.1), resulting in 7,740-fold average coverage.

The determined BAV coding-complete genome sequence was found to be ≈93% identical to that of TIBV and contains all of the tibrovirus-typical open reading frames. Based on these data, we confirm that BAV is a tibrovirus that most likely should be assigned to the existing species Tibrogargan virus.

Nucleotide sequence accession number.

The GenBank accession number of Bivens Arm virus isolate UF 10 is KP688373.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or of the institutions and companies affiliated with the authors.

This work was funded in part through Battelle Memorial Institute’s prime contract with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under contract no. HHSN272200700016I.

S.Y. performed this work as an employee of Battelle Memorial Institute. Subcontractors to Battelle Memorial Institute who performed this work are Y.C. and J.H.K., employees of Tunnell Government Services, Inc.

We are grateful to Toby S. George (Australia), Charles H. Calisher (Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, United States), and Ania D. R. Gubala (Defense Science and Technology Organisation, Fisherman’s Bend, Vic, Australia) for highly informative discussions on tibroviruses; Robert B. Tesh (WRCEVA, Galveston, TX, United States) for providing BAV; P. Kruger Bryant (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Manhattan, KS, United States) for providing C6/36 cells; and Laura Bollinger (IRF-Frederick, Frederick, MD, United States) for editing the manuscript.

Footnotes

Citation Lauck M, Yú S, Caì Y, Hensley LE, Chiu CY, O’Connor DH, Kuhn JH. 2015. Genome sequence of Bivens Arm virus, a tibrovirus belonging to the species Tibrogargan virus (Mononegavirales: Rhabdoviridae). Genome Announc 3(2):e00089-15. doi:10.1128/genomeA.00089-15.

REFERENCES

  • 1.International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) 2015. Virus taxonomy: 2013 release. http://www.ictvonline.org/virusTaxonomy.asp.
  • 2.Cybinski DH, St. George TD, Standfast HA, McGregor A. 1980. Isolation of Tibrogargan virus, a new Australian rhabdovirus, from Culicoides brevitaris. Vet Microbiol 5:301–308. doi: 10.1016/0378-1135(80)90029-2. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 3.Cybinski DH, Gard GP. 1986. Isolation of a new rhabdovirus in Australia related to Tibrogargan virus. Aust J Biol Sci 39:225–232. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 4.Gubala A, Davis S, Weir R, Melville L, Cowled C, Boyle D. 2011. Tibrogargan and Coastal Plains rhabdoviruses: genomic characterization, evolution of novel genes and seroprevalence in Australian livestock. J Gen Virol 92:2160–2170. doi: 10.1099/vir.0.026120-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 5.Gibbs EP, Calisher CH, Tesh RB, Lazuick JS, Bowen R, Greiner EC. 1989. Bivens Arm virus: a new rhabdovirus isolated from Culicoides insignis in Florida and related to Tibrogargan virus of Australia. Vet Microbiol 19:141–150. doi: 10.1016/0378-1135(89)90079-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 6.Tuekam T, Greiner EC, Gibbs EP. 1991. Seroepidemiology of Bivens Arm virus infections of cattle in Florida, St. Croix and Puerto Rico. Vet Microbiol 28:121–127. doi: 10.1016/0378-1135(91)90087-V. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 7.Calisher CH, Borde GEN, Teukam T, Gibbs EPJ. 1993. Antibody to Bivens Arm virus in Trinidadian Buffalo: a temporal and evolutionary link between Australia, Asia and the Caribbean?, p 80–83. 1st International Symposium, Bovine Ephemeral Fever and Related Rhabdoviruses. Aciar Proc 44. ACIAR, Canberra, Australia. [Google Scholar]
  • 8.Grard G, Fair JN, Lee D, Slikas E, Steffen I, Muyembe JJ, Sittler T, Veeraraghavan N, Ruby JG, Wang C, Makuwa M, Mulembakani P, Tesh RB, Mazet J, Rimoin AW, Taylor T, Schneider BS, Simmons G, Delwart E, Wolfe ND, Chiu CY, Leroy EM. 2012. A novel rhabdovirus associated with acute hemorrhagic fever in central Africa. PLoS Pathog 8:e1002924. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002924. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 9.Lauck M, Sibley SD, Hyeroba D, Tumukunde A, Weny G, Chapman CA, Ting N, Switzer WM, Kuhn JH, Friedrich TC, O’Connor DH, Goldberg TL. 2013. Exceptional simian hemorrhagic fever virus diversity in a wild African primate community. J Virol 87:688–691. doi: 10.1128/JVI.02433-12. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genome Announcements are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES