Figure 1.

Phylogenetic analysis of almost complete WNV lineage 2 genomes (11,005 nt)

CEC: Central and Eastern European clade; EGC: Eastern German clade; nt: nucleotides; WNV: West Nile virus.

All WNV strains sequenced in this study are indicated by filled circles and are part of the main CEC – which includes the EGC as proposed earlier by Ziegler et al. [17]. Nucleotide identity between the present WNV lineage 2 genomes was 99.8–99.9%. The evolutionary history was inferred by using the Maximum Likelihood method based on the Tamura–Nei model. GenBank accession numbers of included sequences are shown on the tree. The scale bar indicates nt substitutions per site. Bootstraps values above 80% are shown next to the branches.