Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54714-w, published online 08 January 2020


The original version of this Article contained errors.


After publication of the Article, it came to the Authors attention that when other sequence alignment tools are used, no recombination signal is identified. The Authors speculate that the positive identification of recombination events reported in the Article may have been caused by the highly variable non-coding region between M and F, which is hard to align. The Authors consider this identification to therefore be a bioinformatics error. Article was changed as follows to reflect this.


In the Results, ‘Recombination analysis’


“Lying between 5ʹ UTR of the M gene (3406–4888 bp) and 3ʹ UTR of the F gene (4892–7306 bp), a putative recombination event was observed in the complete genome (4607–5425 nts) of Pakistan-origin strain of SRMV. With a probability of MC value of 2.357 E−22, this event was found between a recombinant Pakistani strain (KY967608; SRMV/Lahore/UVAS/Pak/2015) and Indian strains (KR140086; Izatngar/94 as major parent and KT860064; IND/TN/VEL/2015/03 as minor parent) (Fig. 6). This observation was consistent in all of the seven recombination algorithm methods at p < 0.001. A detailed information on inferred breakpoint and p-value of algorithm approaches is given in Table 10.”


now reads:


“Lying between 5ʹ UTR of the M gene (3406–4888 bp) and 3ʹ UTR of the F gene (4892–7306 bp), apparently a putative recombination event was observed in the complete genome (4607–5425 nts) of Pakistan-origin strain of SRMV but it is attributed to bioinformatics errors. Therefore, no recombination was found in the current study.”


Additionally, Figure 6 and Table 10 were removed. The original figure and table are reproduced below.

Figure 6
figure 6

A graphical illustration of plot showing detection of recombination event.

Full size image
Table 10 Evidence of recombination events in the whole genome of Pakistan-originated SRMV strain along with breakpoint positions and significant p-values.
Full size table

In the Discussion,


“The occurrence of recombination events is considered a significant source of genetic diversity for RNA viruses46. Beside rare occurrence of recombination in negative sense RNA viruses particularly SRMV, an analysis for the detection of recombination event/s is recommended as a standard component of every phylogenetic analysis to serve an important quality-control function to weed out laboratory and analytical errors47. We found recombination events among Pakistani- and Indian-origin strains which further highlight the co-existence of similar SRMV strains along with its transboundary nature of transmission48. Indicating a high resolution of prediction, the observed putative recombination event was statistically significant and was identified by more than five recombination detection algorithms. Such an interference of Indian strains as major and minor parents for Pakistan-originated recombinant strain highlight its potential to cross international borders48. Similar finding has previously been observed for another RNA virus (Yellow leaf virus) from Pakistan and India49. Potnetial reason for such a sharing of genetic material could be speculative and may be attributed to an increased disease incidence rate and frequent disease outbreaks near borderline of these countries50,51. Though potnetial occurrence of homologous recombination in some of the negative sense RNA viruses is low52, it is not surprising because sporadic recombination in various negative-sense RNA viruses such as Hantavirus53,54, ambisense arenaviruses55,56, Newcastle disease viruses57,58 and morbilliviruses (e.g. canine distemper virus59 and measles virus60) has been evidenced. Hence, an emergence of viral variants could be anticipated that may differ antigenically and serologically and therefore may have consequences in terms of failure in diagnostics and vaccine efficacy.”


now reads:


“The occurrence of recombination events is considered a significant source of genetic diversity for RNA viruses46. Occurrence of recombination in negative-sense RNA viruses is extremely rare, still analysis for the detection of recombination event/s is recommended as a standard component of every phylogenetic analysis to serve an important quality-control function to weed out laboratory and analytical errors47. In the current study, no recombination event was found.”


As a result, the following References were removed and are listed below:


Seyoum, B. & Teshome, E. Major Transboundary Disease of Ruminants and their Economic Effect in Ethiopia. Global J of Med Res (2018).


Elsayed, A. I., Boulila, M., Odero, D. C. & Komor, E. Phylogenetic and recombination analysis of sorghum isolates of Sugarcane yellow leaf virus. Plant Pathol 67(1), 221–32 (2018).


Muthuchelvan, D. et al. Molecular characterization of peste-des-petits ruminants virus (PPRV) isolated from an outbreak in the Indo-Bangladesh border of Tripura state of North-East India. Vet Microbiol 174(3-4), 591–5 (2014).


Aziz-ul-R. et al. Evaluation of risk factors for peste des petits ruminants virus in sheep and goats at the Wildlife-Livestock Interface in Punjab Province, Pakistan. BioMed Res Int (2016).


Chare, E. R., Gould, E. A. & Holmes, E. C. Phylogenetic analysis reveals a low rate of homologous recombination in negative-sense RNA viruses. J Gen Virol 84(10), 2691–703 (2003).


Klempa, B. et al. Genetic interaction between distinct Dobrava hantavirus subtypes in Apodemus agrarius and A. flavicollis in nature. J Virol 77(1), 804–809 (2003).


Sironen, T., Vaheri, A. & Plyusnin, A. Molecular evolution of Puumala hantavirus. J Virol 75(23), 11803–11810 (2001).


Charrel, R. N., de Lamballerie, X. & Fulhorst, C. F. The Whitewater Arroyo virus: natural evidence for genetic recombination among Tacaribe serocomplex viruses (family Arenaviridae). Virology 283(2), 161–166 (2001).


Archer, A. M. & Rico-Hesse, R. High genetic divergence and recombination in Arenaviruses from the Americas. Virology 304(2), 274–281 (2002).


Zhang, R., Wang, X., Su, J., Zhao, J. & Zhang, G. Isolation and analysis of two naturally-occurring multi-recombination Newcastle disease viruses in China. Virus Res 151(1), 45–53 (2010).


Han, G. Z., He, C. Q., Ding, N. Z. & Ma, L. Y. Identification of a natural multi-recombinant of Newcastle disease virus. Virology 371(1), 54–60 (2008).


Yuan, C. et al. Homologous recombination is a force in the evolution of canine distemper virus. PloS one 12(4), e0175416 (2017).


Schierup, M. H., Mordhorst, C. H., Muller, C. P. & Christensen, L. S. Evidence of recombination among early-vaccination era measles virus strains. BMC Evol Biol 5(1), 52 (2005).


Consequently, References 48–57 were incorrectly listed as References as 61–70.


These changes do not affect the overall conclusions of the Article. This has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.