What the cat dragged in: emergence of a highly pathogenic feline canine recombinant coronavirus

Abstract

Cross-species transmission of coronaviruses (CoVs) pose a serious threat to both animal and human health. Whilst the large RNA genome of CoVs shows relatively low mutation rates, recombination is frequently observed. In cats, feline CoVs (FCoVs) are common globally, and typically cause very mild or absent clinical signs of disease. Occasionally, FCoVs switch biotype, gain pantropism, and cause feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) — a disease that is lethal without treatment but that is unlikely to transmit between individuals. Canine CoVs (CCoVs) similarly tend to cause very mild or absent clinical signs, except in the case of strains of pantropic CCoVs, which are lethal in dogs. This talk will describe the emergence of a novel, highly pathogenic FCoV-CCoV recombinant, FCoV-23, identified in a rapidly spreading outbreak of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) in Cyprus. The recombinant was discovered using nanopore sequencing of a long amplicon spanning the majority of the spike gene. The recombination, spanning almost exclusively the spike, shows 97% sequence identity to the pantropic canine coronavirus CB/05. A deletion and several amino acid changes in the spike, particularly in the receptor binding domain, compared to other FCoVIIs, indicate changes to receptor binding and likely cell tropism. Development of disease in cats appears rapid and likely non-reliant on biotype switch. High sequence identity of isolates from cats in different districts of the island is strongly supportive of direct transmission. This talk will provide an update on the current situation and recommended genome sequencing strategies.

Biography

Amanda Warr is a BBSRC Discovery Fellow with expertise in long-read sequencing and (meta)genome assembly, working in both wet lab and bioinformatics. The projects she has been involved in include work in a variety of species, on anti-microbial resistance, viral epidemiology, diagnostics, and genome assembly in mammals, birds, viruses, and microbiomes. Amanda’s current projects focus on how the gut microbiome impacts immune responses to viruses, and on sequencing animal viruses, primarily viruses of pigs and cats.