Molecular characterization of Equine Infectious Anemia Viruses using targeted sequence enrichment and next generation sequencing.

Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) is responsible of acute disease episodes characterized by fever, anemia, thrombocytopenia and anorexia in equids. The high mutation rate in EIAV genome limited the number of full genome sequences availability. In the present study, we used the SureSelect target enrichment system with Illumina Next Generation Sequencing to characterize the proviral DNA of Equine Infectious Anemia Virus (EIAV) from asymptomatic horses. This approach allows a direct sequencing of the EIAV whole genome without cloning or amplification steps and we could obtain for the first time the complete genomic DNA sequences of French EIAV strains. We analyzed their phylogenetic relationship and genetic variability by comparison with 17 whole EIAV genome sequences from different parts of the world. The results obtained provide new insights into the molecular detection of EIAV and genetic diversity of European viral strains.