Fig. 2. Comparison of UTR sequences. (a) Comparison of the UTRs of BeH759022 isolate (chosen as a representative of the clinical isolates) with OROV strain BeAn19991. The bases in red highlight differences between BeAn19991 and BeH759022. (b) Minigenome assay. Comparison of S-segment-based minigenomes containing the S UTR of OROV BeAn19991 or the S UTR of the newly sequenced isolates. BSR-T7/5 cells were transfected with pTM1OROV-L and pTM1OROV-N plasmids expressing the L and N proteins, respectively, in addition to an S-segment-minigenome-expressing plasmid and pTM1-FF-Luc expressing firefly luciferase as an internal control. The control cells lacked pTM1OROV-L. Minigenome activity was expressed as fold induction over the background control. (c) Comparison of the M-segment UTRs of the novel M segment (BeAn790177) with those of OROV, Iquitos virus (IQTV), Madre de Dios virus (MDDV) and JATV. The C/A mismatch is highlighted in red. The dotted line indicates the extent of the conserved terminal sequence.