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researchers conducted a phylogenetic analysis on the basis of the
meq sequence of the 132 viruses, together with the CVI1988 strain, which is shown in
Figure 2. Altogether, the majority of the viruses isolated from Middle Eastern countries including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia showed very short distances with no more than 10 different base pairs, suggesting they may originate in the same ancestor. The strains found in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were almost identical, with fewer than three base pair differences (
Figure 2, Table S1). As an exception, the strain “2019 Turkey MDV/Tur/2019” was very close (fewer than 3 bp differences) to the virus “India Group 1” (green branch in
Figure 2), which may suggest virus transmission between the two countries. The viruses in China can be mainly divided in three groups on the basis of sequence (
Figure 2). First,
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researchers find the “China Group 1” (red branch in
Figure 2) that dominated the most recent outbreaks. Second, the “China Group 2” (brown branch in
Figure 2) that displayed a short distance (less than 3 different point mutations) with the vaccine strain CVI988. Finally, the third group included “China Group 3” (purple branch in
Figure 2), which is closely related to “2014–2015 Japan Kgs-C1” and “2014 Indonesia SMI14-KampungCk”. Additionally, there are some exceptions: “2015 China Crane”, a strain isolated from a wild crane, which showed more similarities with “2011–2015 China HS/1412”, “2016 China An-1”, and the “India Group 2” (yellow branch,
Figure 2) when compared with China Groups 1, 2, and 3, indicating that there may have been two branches of MDV evolution in China. The strains in India can be divided into two groups, one for the “India Group 1” (green branch in
Figure 2), and the second group “India Group 2” (yellow branch in
Figure 2). The first group was found to be closer to the “2015 China Crane branch”, and the second was closer to the “2014 Indonesia SMI14-KampungCk”. In Japan, except for the strains mentioned above, there were also “2016 Japan Gifu1-6” and “2014–2015 Japan Me-C3” that were found to only be poorly related to other strains (more than 10 different point mutations). Overall, according to the groups and evolutionary distances,
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researchers were able to divide the regions into three internal connected parts, the Middle East (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia), South Asia (India, Indonesia), and East Asia (China Group 3 and 2014–2015 Japan kgs-c1). The strains within the countries in the part showed less than 10 different point mutations. However, there was an additional “China Group 1” and various highly mutated strains that have mainly been found in Japan (right part of
Figure 2).