Genomic Characterisation of a Highly Divergent Siadenovirus (Psittacine Siadenovirus F) from the Critically Endangered Orange-Bellied Parrot ( Neophema chrysogaster )

• Published in: Viruses Vol. 13; no. 9; p. 1714
• Main Authors: Athukorala, Ajani, Phalen, David N, Das, Ashutosh, Helbig, Karla J, Forwood, Jade K, Sarker, Subir
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 28.08.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Adenoviridae; Adenoviridae Infections - veterinary; Adenoviruses; Amino acids; Animals; Animals, Wild - virology; Annotations; Australia; Bird Diseases - virology; Birds; Captive breeding; Divergence; DNA polymerase; Endangered Species; Evolution; Genome, Viral; Genomes; Genomics; Genomics - methods; Geochelone platynota; Indigenous species; Neophema chrysogaster; next-generation sequencing; Nucleotide sequence; orange-bellied parrot; Parrots - virology; Passeri; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Proteins; psittacine siadenovirus F; Siadenovirus; Siadenovirus - classification; Siadenovirus - genetics; Siadenovirus - isolation & purification; Software; Viruses; Australia; New Zealand; Denmark; United States > US; Aarhus Denmark; siadenovirus; Adenoviridae; evolution; next-generation sequencing; orange-bellied parrot; psittacine siadenovirus F
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v13091714

Siadenoviruses have been detected in wild and captive birds worldwide. Only nine siadenoviruses have been fully sequenced; however, partial sequences for 30 others, many of these from wild Australian birds, are also described. Some siadenoviruses, e.g., the turkey siadenovirus A, can cause disease; however, most cause subclinical infections. An example of a siadenovirus causing predominately subclinical infections is psittacine siadenovirus 2, proposed name psittacine siadenovirus F (PsSiAdV-F), which is enzootic in the captive breeding population of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot (OBP, ). Here, we have fully characterised PsSiAdV-F from an OBP. The PsSiAdV-F genome is 25,392 bp in length and contained 25 putative genes. The genome architecture of PsSiAdV-F exhibited characteristics similar to members within the genus ; however, the novel PsSiAdV-F genome was highly divergent, showing highest and lowest sequence similarity to skua siadenovirus A (57.1%) and psittacine siadenovirus D (31.1%), respectively. Subsequent phylogenetic analyses of the novel PsSiAdV-F genome positioned the virus into a phylogenetically distinct sub-clade with all other siadenoviruses and did not show any obvious close evolutionary relationship. Importantly, the resulted tress continually demonstrated that novel PsSiAdV-F evolved prior to all known members except the frog siadenovirus A in the evolution and possibly the ancestor of the avian siadenoviruses. To date, PsSiAdV-F has not been detected in wild parrots, so further studies screening PsSiAdV-F in wild Australian parrots and generating whole genome sequences of siadenoviruses of Australian native passerine species is recommended to fill the siadenovirus evolutionary gaps.