Selection analysis and phylogeographic simulation study of worldwide spread of Zika virus

Abstract

Zika is a mosquito borne virus from Flaviviridae family, which recently caused pandemic Zika fever that can lead to development of encephalitis. Even so, this virus is relatively new - it was first discovered in 1947. Recent Zika pandemic caused an interest on its sudden emergence as fatal human pathogen because previously, it was known as the viral pathogen of rhesus monkey. Why and how it crossed species barrier, how this virus spread throughout the world, how it gained the ability to create epidemic - these questions remained unsolved. In this study, selection pressure on two Zika viral protein encoding sequences, Env and M protein, was observed. Bayesian method was employed to create a phylogeographic simulation of its world-wide spread. Phylogenetic study based on maximum-likelihood has been done to reconstruct its ancestry. This study offers better understanding on the genetic and epidemic history of Zika virus in spatial-temporal dimension.