Genetic characterization of the complete genome of an Aleutian mink disease virus isolated in north China

The genome of a highly pathogenic strain of Aleutian disease mink virus (AMDV-BJ) isolated from a domestic farm in North China has been determined and compared with other strains. Alignment analysis of the major structural protein VP2 revealed that AMDV-BJ is unique among 17 other AMDV strains. Compared with the nonpathogenic strain ADV-G, the 3′ end Y-shaped hairpin was highly conserved, while a 4-base deletion in the 5′ U-shaped terminal palindrome resulted in a different unpaired “bubble” group near the NS1-binding region of the 5′ end hairpin which may affect replication efficiency in vivo. We also performed a protein analysis of the NS1, NS2, and new-confirmed NS3 of AMDV-BJ with some related AMDV DNA sequence published, providing information on evolution of AMDV genes. This study shows a useful method to obtain the full-length genome of AMDV and some other parvoviruses.