Novel assay to quantify recombination in a calicivirus

Abstract

Recombination is an important contributor to genomic evolution in many viral families, including the Caliciviridae. While it is known that genomic recombination in caliciviruses contributes to their rapid evolution, the precise molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. The majority of reported recombination events in feline calicivirus (FCV) occur at a "hot spot" between the non-structural protein coding region (open reading frame 1) and structural protein coding region (open reading frame 2). To gain a better understanding of the rate of recombination at this point, we developed a quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay to quantify the rate of recombin..