Analysis of the bovine viral diarrhea virus genome for possible cellular insertions

Mucosal disease is the most severe disease resulting from bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) infection in cattle. Two biotypes of BVDV may be isolated from animals with mucosal disease: cytopathic (cp) and noncytopathic (ncp). These "pairs" of cp/ncp viruses are often closely related and it has been suggested that the cp virus arises from a ncp virus by insertion of cellular RNA in the p125 region of the BVDV genome. We have used four pairs of cp/ncp BVDV isolated from cattle with mucosal disease, to examine the genomic sequence of the region of the genome coding for the nonstructural protein p125 (processed to p54/p80 in cp viruses) by PCR analysis and sequencing. We did not detect any cellular gene insertions in any of the four ncp viruses; however, we found a large duplication of the p80 gene and a ubiquitin gene insertion in three of the four cp isolates. Our results suggest that cellular RNA insertions in the p125 region may contribute significantly to the cytopathogenicity of BVDV. However, this does not appear to be the only mechanism of cytopathogenicity as we did not detect any insertions or duplications in one of the cp viruses. Comparison of the DNA sequence in the p80 region revealed greater homology within the "pairs" than to NADL, which lend further support to the hypothesis that a cp virus is originated from a ncp virus.