Novel papillomavirus isolates from Erinaceus europaeus (Erinaceidae, Insectivora) and the Cervidae (Artiodactyla), Cervus timorensis and Pudu puda, and phylogenetic analysis of partial sequence data.

The diversity of papillomaviruses (PVes) infecting stratified squamous epithelia of warm-blooded animals, such as birds and mammals, is only fragmentarily documented. The PV types are sequenced from 9 of 18 placental taxa at the order level to date. Current phylogenetic analyses of PV sequences frequently do not consider evolutionary polarity and statistical evaluation of internal nodes, that are required for robust evolutionary conclusions. In this study, we isolated and characterized three putatively novel animal PV types from hair follicles comprising the first known insectivoran PV and two cervid PVes. With the help of the primer pair FAP59/FAP64, we amplified L1 gene fragments consisting of approximately 470 base pairs. Phylogenetic analyses were performed with a representative set of 73 PV sequences that included the three novel PVes using Maximum Likelihood, Bayesian inference, Maximum Parsimony, and distance-based methods on amino acid alignments. The three novel PVes appear to be components of the beta+gamma+pi+xi-PV supertaxon, within which the insectivoran PV has an isolated phylogenetic position. The two cervid PVes constitute a distinct group that is only distantly related to the core cervid PVes of the delta-PVes. The molecular data supports a complex evolutionary scenario for PVes which is driven by multiple mechanisms comprising host-linked evolution, adaptive radiation establishing different ecological niches, and multiple infections across species borders.