Evidence of recombination in the capsid-coding region of type A foot-and-mouth disease virus.

Recombination is one of the factors that contribute to genetic diversity in foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). Similarity and bootscan analyses have provided evidence of recombination in the capsid-coding (P1) region of the virus. In the present study, of the 14 subtype A22 field isolates that were distributed in three previously described genotypes (IV, VI and VII) based on the 1D (VP1-encoding) gene sequence (Tosh et al., 2002 ), one isolate (IND 170/88) was found to be a hybrid of genotypes VI and VII in the P1 region. VP1, VP4, the 5' region of VP2 and the 3' region of VP3 of this virus were characteristic of genotype VI, whereas the remaining 3' region of VP2 and the 5' region of VP3 were characteristic of genotype VII. No insertion or deletion was observed in the recombinant virus. Recombination in the P1 region may provide an escape mechanism for the virus.