Sequence analysis of an Asian isolate of minute virus of canines (canine parvovirus type 1).

Minute virus of canines (MVC), also known as canine parvovirus (CPV) type 1, is an autonomous parvovirus that infects domestic dogs worldwide and responsible for clinical problems of neonates and pregnant bitches. It was preliminary described that MVC is antigenically as well as genetically different from CPV type 2 that emerged later. However, much of MVC is still obscure since only a limited number of MVC isolates have been available for the study. MVC infections of Japanese and Korean dogs were epidemiologically studied in the previous study, and several MVC isolates could be cultivated in vitro. In the present study an almost full-length nucleotide sequence of a Korean MVC strain HM-6 genome was obtained and comparatively analyzed with those of the American MVC strain GA3 characterized recently. Genome structure of the HM-6 strain was similar to the GA3 strain showing 96.4% identity at the nucleotide sequence. Each of the deduced amino acid sequences of NS1, NP-1, and VP1/2 showed homology of 96.5%, 92.5%, and 97.5% between the HM-6 and GA3 strains. When compared with other parvovirus species, the HM-6 strain was most closely related to bovine parvovirus (BPV) as described for the GA3 strain. These results suggest that MVC together with BPV can possibly be classified into a new clade in the Parvovirinae subfamily.