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Volume 20, Number 6—June 2014
Dispatch

MERS Coronaviruses in Dromedary Camels, Egypt

Daniel K.W. Chu1, Leo L.M. Poon1, Mokhtar M. Gomaa, Mahmoud M. Shehata, Ranawaka A.P.M. Perera, Dina Abu Zeid, Amira S. El Rifay, Lewis Y. Siu, Yi Guan, Richard J. Webby, Mohamed A. Ali, Malik PeirisComments to Author , and Ghazi KayaliComments to Author 
Author affiliations: The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (D.K.W. Chu, L.L.M. Poon, R.A.P.M. Perera, Y. Guan, M. Peiris); National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt (M.M. Gomaa, M.M. Shehata, D.A. Zeid, A.S. El Rifay, M.A. Ali); HKU-Pasteur Research Pole, Hong Kong (L.Y. Siu); St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (R.J. Webby, G. Kayali)

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Figure 1

Phylogenetic analyses of a partial RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) sequence determined from samples from dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius) NRCE-HKU205 and NRCE-HKU270 that were positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The viral RdRp region analyzed is a highly conserved region of the genome (covering motif B of RdRp) in nonstructural protein 12, at position 15202–15582 of MERS-CoV genome. The partial RdRp sequence of NRCE-HKU205 (GenBank accession no. KJ4771

Figure 1. Phylogenetic analyses of a partial RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) sequence determined from samples from dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius) NRCE-HKU205 and NRCE-HKU270 that were positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)The viral RdRp region analyzed is a highly conserved region of the genome (covering motif B of RdRp) in nonstructural protein 12, at position 15202–15582 of MERS-CoV genomeThe partial RdRp sequence of NRCE-HKU205 (GenBank accession noKJ477102) and NRCE-HKU270 (GenBank accession noKJ477103) was aligned with human MERS-CoVs (GenBank accession nosKF600652, KF600630, KF600651, KF186567, KF600627, KF186564, KF600634, KF600632, KF600644, KF600647, KF600645, KF186565, KF186566, KF745068, KF600620, KF600612, KC667074, KC164505, KF192507, KF600613, KF600628, KF961222, KF961221, KC776174, and JX869059) and other representative animal betacoroanviruses (GenBank accession nosHKU5–1, EF065509; BtCoV/PML/Neo cfzul/RSA/2011, KC869678)Bat CoV HKU5–1 and bat CoV/PML/Neo cfzul/RSA/2011 were included in the analysis as outgroups because they are phylogenetically closest to MERS-CoVPhylogenetic trees were constructed by using MEGA5 (14) with neighbor-joining methodNumbers at nodes indicate bootstrap values determined by 500 replicatesOnly bootstrap values >70 are denotedBold type indicates MERS-CoV identified in the current studyScale bars indicate the estimated genetic distance of these viruses.

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1These authors contributed equally to this article.

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