Welcome to the African Swine Fever Virus Sequence Database

Genetic typing in combination with epidemiological findings is an essential method for tracing relations between outbreaks of ASF and to trace the dynamic of the disease. In this context, a computerized database containing all available information concerning the African swine fever (ASF) virus strains and isolates kept in the EU Reference Laboratory (EU-RL) has been established and is being continuously updated upon arrival of new isolates. The purpose is to compile sequence information of the ASFV isolates from all epidemics in or near the European Union, as well as from all over the world and to make the data available to other laboratories for the rapid typing of isolates from new outbreaks.

The data base includes sequence information of three defined regions of ASFV genome using for classical genotyping comprising; i) partial sequence of the C-terminal end of the gene B646L encoding the major protein p72 (Bastos et al., 2003) which allow us to classify the ASFV in 22 major genotypes (Boshoff et al., 2007), ii) to sequence the full E183L-gene encoding the p54 protein (Gallardo et al., 2009) as a valuable additional genotyping method for molecular epidemiological studies of each p72 genotype viruses, and iii) the sequencing of the central variable region within B602L-gene (CVR) characterized by the presence of amino acid tandem repeats (Nix et al., 2006; Gallardo et al., 2011). The CVR remains the genome target of choice when attempting to determine the origin and map the spread of closely related virus.

Apart from the sequences, it contains epidemiological data for more than 500 ASFV isolates such as the year of isolation, country, region, and host species, which are necessary for identifying new isolates. Individual p72, p54 and/or CVR sequences can be downloading and exported for further use, i.e. for performing the alignment and for calculating the phylogenetic tree.

SEQUENCE DATABASE ACCESSION

To access to the sequence data base is required a user name and a password, which can be obtained by sending an EMAIL to the eurl.asf@inia.csic.es