Bioinformatics analysis of envelope gene recombination of Chinese dengue virus isolates

Abstract:

Objective：To explore the recombination of envelope protein （E） gene of Chinese dengue virus （DV） isolates. Methods：70 Chinese DV E gene sequences available from GenBank were collected，and aligned with Clustal-W，then were incorporated into recombination detection program （RDP3） for potential recombination event detection. Phylogenetic trees constructed by Mega4 were further generated to confirm the recombination events. Results：Three intra-serotype recombination events，four recombinants isolated in 1995，1997，1999，and 2004，respectively，were confirmed in DV-1 E gene data. However，no recombination event was detected in other three serotypes in the data，so was the inter-serotype recombination. Conclusion：Recombination of E gene regions of Chinese dengue virus type 1 exists，although limited data were available.It highlights the necessity of employing more gene regions and se－quences in the analysis to fully detect the recombination in China.