First Complete Genome Sequence of Zika Virus from Urine of Recruit in the Republic of Korea, 2016

Zika virus (ZIKV) is single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus that belongs to the Flavivirus genus in the flaviviridae family. ZIKV is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that was first isolated from a rhesus monkey in the Zika forest... [ view full abstract ]

Zika virus (ZIKV) is single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus that belongs to the Flavivirus genus in the flaviviridae family. ZIKV is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that was first isolated from a rhesus monkey in the Zika forest of Uganda in 1947. Since then, ZIKV has become one of the most emerging mosquito-borne virus in Sub- Saharan Africa, America and Southeast Asia. ZIKV infection associated with microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome. Here, we firstly report the full-length genome sequence of ZIKV strain AFMC-U, isolated from urine of male recruit in a Korean army training center in the Republic of Korea. In April 2016, a 21-year-old man returning from Boracay, Phililppines. After 2 weeks, he joined the Army. And then, he was hospitalized with rashes and no fever. The whole genome sequencing (NGS) technology. NGS data of the ZIKV strain AFMC-U generated 1,012,451 reads with an average read length of 150 bases. The full-length genome sequences of ZIKV strain AFMC-U was 10,794 nucleotide with 51.4% G+C content and 107- (1 to 107) and 428-nucleotide (10,367 to 10,794) 5’ and 3’ untranslated region (UTR), respectively. The phylogenetic tree showed that ZIKV AFMC-U belong to the Asian lineage and clustered with ZIKV from Philippines. This is the first report of the whole genome sequences from an influx case of ZIKV infection in the Republic of Korea. It will accelerate the acquisition of new knowledge about their phylogenetic, phylogeographic and evolutionary origin of ZIKV.