Prevalence and genetic diversity in bovine parechovirus infecting Japanese cattle

The first bovine parechovirus (Bo_ParV) was reported in 2021, and currently, only two nearly complete genome sequences of Bo_ParV are available. In this study, we detected Bo_ParVs in 10 out of 158 bovine fecal samples tested using real-time RT-PCR, and Bo_ParVs were isolated from three of these samples using MA104 cells. Analysis of the P1 region revealed that Bo_ParVs shared high pairwise amino acid sequence similarity (≥ 95.7% identity), suggesting antigenic similarity among Bo_ParVs, whereas nucleotide sequence identity values (≥ 84.8%) indicated more variability. A recombination breakpoint was identified in the 2B region, which may influence the evolution of this virus.