Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Genomic Surveillance of Rabies Virus in Georgian Canines

Celeste Huaman
,
Adrian C. Paskey
ORCID logo ,
Caitlyn Clouse
,
Austin Feasley
,
Madeline Rader
ORCID logo ,
Gregory K Rice
,
Andrea E Luquette
,
Maren C Fitzpatrick
,
Hannah M Drumm
,
Regina Z Cer
,
Marina Donduashvili
,
Tamar Buchukuri
,
Anna Nanava
,
Christine E Hulseberg
,
Michael A Washington
,
Eric D Laing
,
Francisco Malagon
ORCID logo ,
Kimberly A Bishop-Lilly
* ORCID logo ,
Christopher C Broder
* ORCID logo ,
Brian C Schaefer
* ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 16 June 2023 / Approved: 26 June 2023 / Online: 26 June 2023 (14:44:40 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Huaman, C.; Paskey, A.C.; Clouse, C.; Feasley, A.; Rader, M.; Rice, G.K.; Luquette, A.E.; Fitzpatrick, M.C.; Drumm, H.M.; Yan, L.; Cer, R.Z.; Donduashvili, M.; Buchukuri, T.; Nanava, A.; Hulseberg, C.E.; Washington, M.A.; Laing, E.D.; Malagon, F.; Broder, C.C.; Bishop-Lilly, K.A.; Schaefer, B.C. Genomic Surveillance of Rabies Virus in Georgian Canines. Viruses 2023, 15, 1797. Huaman, C.; Paskey, A.C.; Clouse, C.; Feasley, A.; Rader, M.; Rice, G.K.; Luquette, A.E.; Fitzpatrick, M.C.; Drumm, H.M.; Yan, L.; Cer, R.Z.; Donduashvili, M.; Buchukuri, T.; Nanava, A.; Hulseberg, C.E.; Washington, M.A.; Laing, E.D.; Malagon, F.; Broder, C.C.; Bishop-Lilly, K.A.; Schaefer, B.C. Genomic Surveillance of Rabies Virus in Georgian Canines. Viruses 2023, 15, 1797.

Abstract

Rabies is a fatal zoonosis that is considered a re-emerging infectious disease. Although rabies remains endemic in canines throughout much of the world, vaccination programs have essentially eliminated dog rabies in the Americas and much of Europe. However, despite the goal of eradicating dog rabies in the European Union by 2020, sporadic cases of dog rabies still occur in Eastern Europe, including Georgia. To assess the genetic diversity of strains recently circulating in Georgia, we sequenced 78 RABV-positive samples from brain tissues of rabid dogs and jackals using Illumina short-read sequencing of total RNA shotgun libraries. Seventy-seven RABV genomes were successfully assembled and annotated, 74 of them to the coding complete status. Phylogenetic analyses of the nucleoprotein (N) and attachment glycoprotein (G) genes placed all the assembled genomes into the Cosmopolitan clade, consistent with the Georgian origin of the samples. Amino acid alignment of the G glycoprotein ectodomain identified twelve different sequences for this domain among the samples. Only one of the ectodomain groups contained a residue change in an antigenic site, an R264H change in the G5 antigenic site. Three isolates were cultured, and these were found to be efficiently neutralized by human monoclonal antibody A6. Overall, our data show that recently circulating RABV isolates from Georgian canines are predominantly closely related phylogroup I viruses of the Cosmopolitan clade. Current rabies vaccines should offer protection against infection by Georgian canine RABVs. The genomes have been deposited in GenBank (accessions: OQ603609-OQ603685).

Keywords

Rabies; lyssaviruses; RABV; dog; jackal; canine; neutralization; genomics; next-generation sequencing; phylogeny

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Virology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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