title: The genome sequence of ectromelia virus Naval and Cornell isolates from outbreaks in North America.
abstract: Ectromelia virus (ECTV) is the causative agent of mousepox, a disease of laboratory mouse colonies and an excellent model for human smallpox. We report the genome sequence of two isolates from outbreaks in laboratory mouse colonies in the USA in 1995 and 1999: ECTV-Naval and ECTV-Cornell, respectively. The genome of ECTV-Naval and ECTV-Cornell was sequenced by the 454-Roche technology. The ECTV-Naval genome was also sequenced by the Sanger and Illumina technologies in order to evaluate these technologies for poxvirus genome sequencing. Genomic comparisons revealed that ECTV-Naval and ECTV-Cornell correspond to the same virus isolated from independent outbreaks. Both ECTV-Naval and ECTV-Cornell are extremely virulent in susceptible BALB/c mice, similar to ECTV-Moscow. This is consistent with the ECTV-Naval genome sharing 98.2% DNA sequence identity with that of ECTV-Moscow, and indicates that the genetic differences with ECTV-Moscow do not affect the virulence of ECTV-Naval in the mousepox model of footpad infection.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Nicolas Cabrera 1, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mavian
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Nicolas Cabrera 1, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: López-Bueno
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Neil A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Seeger
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Quail
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Barrell
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Nicolas Cabrera 1, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain; Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Electronic address: aalcami@cbm.csic.es.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alcami
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004481:Ectromelia virus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D004482:Ectromelia, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D005260:Female; D016679:Genome, Viral; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral
keywords: Ectromelia virus; Genome sequence; Poxvirus; Virulence