Novel pneumoviruses (PnVs): Evolution and inflammatory pathology

A previous report of a novel pneumovirus (PnV) isolated from the respiratory tract of a dog described its significant homology to the rodent pathogen, pneumonia virus of mice (PVM). The original PnV–Ane4 pathogen replicated in and could be re-isolated in infectious state from mouse lung but elicited minimal mortality compared to PVM strain J3666. Here we assess phylogeny and physiologic responses to 10 new PnV isolates. The G/glycoprotein sequences of all PnVs include elongated amino-termini when compared to the characterized PVMs, and suggest division into groups A and B. While we observed significant differences in cytokine production and neutrophil recruitment to the lungs of BALB/c mice in response to survival doses (50 TCID₅₀ units) of representative group A (114378-10-29-KY-F) and group B (7968-11-OK) PnVs, we observed no evidence for positive selection (dN>dS) among the PnV/PnV, PVM/PnV or PVM/PVM G/glycoprotein or F/fusion protein sequence pairs. - Highlights: • We consider ten novel isolates of the pneumovirus (PnV) first described by Renshaw and colleagues. • The G/glycoprotein sequences of all PnVs include elongated amino-termini when compared to PVM. • We detect cytokine production and neutrophil recruitment to the lungs of mice in response to PnV. • We observed no evidence for positive selection (dN>dS) among the gene sequence pairs