Abstract
Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), a rhabdovirus infecting teleost fish, has repeatedly crossed the boundary from marine fish species to freshwater cultured rainbow trout. These naturally replicated cross-species transmission events permit the study of general and repeatable evolutionary events occurring in connection with viral emergence in a novel host species. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the adaptive molecular evolution of the VHSV glycoprotein, one of the key virus proteins involved in viral emergence, following emergence from marine species into freshwater cultured rainbow trout. A comprehensive phylogenetic reconstruction of the complete coding region of the VHSV glycoprotein was conducted, and adaptive molecular evolution was investigated using a maximum likelihood approach to compare different codon substitution models allowing for heterogeneous substitution rate ratios among amino acid sites. Evidence of positive selection was detected at six amino acid sites of the VHSV glycoprotein, within the signal peptide, the confirmation-dependent major neutralizing epitope, and the intracellular tail. Evidence of positive selection was found exclusively in rainbow trout-adapted virus isolates, and amino acid combinations found at the six sites under positive selection pressure differentiated rainbow trout- from non-rainbow trout-adapted isolates. Furthermore, four adaptive sites revealed signs of recurring identical changes across phylogenetic groups of rainbow trout-adapted isolates, suggesting that repeated VHSV emergence in freshwater cultured rainbow trout was established through convergent routes of evolution that are associated with immune escape.IMPORTANCE This study is the first to demonstrate that VHSV emergence from marine species into freshwater cultured rainbow trout has been accompanied by bursts of adaptive evolution in the VHSV glycoprotein. Furthermore, repeated detection of the same adaptive amino acid sites across phylogenetic groups of rainbow trout-adapted isolates indicates that adaptation to rainbow trout was established through parallel evolution. In addition, signals of convergent evolution toward the maintenance of genetic variation were detected in the conformation-dependent neutralizing epitope or in close proximity to disulfide bonds involved in the structural conformation of the neutralizing epitope, indicating adaptation to immune response-related genetic variation across freshwater cultured rainbow trout.