Elucidation of the Genomic Nucleotide Sequence of Bovine Coronavirus and Analysis of Cryptic Leader mRNA Fusion Sites

Over the last few years numerous respiratory bovine coronaviruses (RBCV) were isolated from respiratory infections of cattle including two shipping fever epizootics (Storz et al., 1996; Storz et al., 2000). The RBCV strain 98TXSF-110-LU (LU) and the enteric strain 98TXSF-110-ENT (ENT) were isolated from lung and intestinal samples, respectively, from an animal experiencing fatal respiratory disease during a 1998 shipping fever epizootic. We obtained and compared the entire genomic sequences of the LU and ENT isolates to delineate nucleotide (nt) and amino acid (aa) differences between them. In addition, we analyzed the leader-mRNA junction sequences of the S and 12.7 kDa mRNAs specified by different BCV strains.