Isolation and characterization of emerging Mpox virus from India

Abstract Mpox (previously known as Monkeypox) has recently re‐emerged, primarily through human‐to‐human transmission in non‐endemic countries including India. Virus isolation is still considered as the gold standard for diagnosis of viral infections. Here, the qPCR positive skin lesion sample from a patient was inoculated in Vero E6 cell monolayer. Characteristic cytopathic effect exhibiting typical cell rounding and detachment was observed at passage‐02. The virus isolation was confirmed by qPCR. The replication kinetics of the isolate was determined that revealed maximum viral titre of log 6.3 PFU/mL at 72 h postinfection. Further, whole genome analysis through next generation sequencing revealed that the Mpox virus (MPXV) isolate is characterized by several unique SNPs and INDELs. Phylogenetically, it belonged to A.2 lineage of clade IIb, forming a close group with all other Indian MPXV along with few from USA, UK, Portugal, Thailand and Nigeria. This study reports the first successful isolation and phenotypic and genotypic characterization of MPXV from India.