SRA

The bunyaviruses (order Bunyavirales) are a large and diverse group of viruses that includes important human, veterinary, and plant pathogens. Our ability to rapidly characterize known and new pathogens depends on a complete reference sequence database with which to match unknowns, infer evolutionary and pathogenic potential, and make response decisions in an evidence-based manner. In this study, we determined the coding complete sequences of 101 bunyavirus isolates in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Arbovirus Reference Collection focusing on viruses in the Orthobunyavirus, Phlebovirus, and Orthonairovirus genera. These isolates were collected over 66 years from 27 countries from vertebrate and arthropod taxa representing 37 host genera. Many of the viruses had been characterized serologically and in animal models, but were isolated in the pre-sequencing era. We took advantage of our unusually large sample size to systematically evaluate genomic and molecular characteristics of the viruses, including reassortment, defective genomic forms, co-infection, and multiple independent losses of the NSs gene in orthobunyaviruses. We corroborated our findings using several independent molecular and virological approaches, including Sanger sequencing of 202 genome segments, and plaque isolation from putative co-infected virus stock. Overall, this study contributes substantially to the described genetic diversity of bunyaviruses, and significantly advances our knowledge of the global bunyavirus diversity which will enhance our capacity to rapidly characterize emerging human pathogenic bunyaviruses.