Virus Evolution最新文献

{"title":"Eco-evolutionary dynamics of temperate phages in periodic environments.","authors":"Tapan Goel, Stephen J Beckett, Joshua S Weitz","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf019","DOIUrl":"10.1093/ve/veaf019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bacteriophages (viruses that exclusively infect bacteria) exhibit a continuum of infection mechanisms, including lysis and lysogeny in interactions with bacterial hosts. Recent work has demonstrated the short-term advantages of lysogeny over lysis in conditions of low host availability. Hence, temperate phage which can switch between lytic and lysogenic strategies-both stochastically and responsively-are hypothesized to have an evolutionary advantage in a broad range of conditions. However, the long-term advantages of lysogeny are not well understood, particularly when environmental conditions vary over time. To examine generalized drivers of viral strategies over the short- and long-term, we explore the eco-evolutionary dynamics of temperate viruses in periodic environments with varying levels of host availability and viral mortality. We use a nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations to simulate periodically-forced dynamics that separate a 'within-growth' phase and a 'between-growth' phase, in which a (potentially unequal) fraction of virus particles and lysogens survive. Using this ecological model and invasion analysis, we show and quantify how conflicts can arise between strategies in the short term that may favour lysis and strategies in the long term that may favour lysogeny. In doing so, we identify a wide range of conditions in which temperate strategies can outperform obligately lytic or lysogenic strategies. Finally, we demonstrate that temperate strategies can mitigate against the potential local extinction of viruses in stochastically fluctuating environments, providing further evidence of the eco-evolutionary benefits of being temperate.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf019"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12105577/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144152970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rapid response to fast viral evolution using AlphaFold 3-assisted topological deep learning.","authors":"JunJie Wee, Guo-Wei Wei","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf026","DOIUrl":"10.1093/ve/veaf026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The fast evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious viruses poses a grand challenge to the rapid response in terms of viral tracking, diagnostics, and design and manufacture of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and vaccines, which are both time-consuming and costly. This underscores the need for efficient computational approaches. Recent advancements, like topological deep learning (TDL), have introduced powerful tools for forecasting emerging dominant variants, yet they require deep mutational scanning (DMS) of viral surface proteins and associated three-dimensional (3D) protein-protein interaction (PPI) complex structures. We propose an AlphaFold 3 (AF3)-assisted multi-task topological Laplacian (MT-TopLap) strategy to address this need. MT-TopLap combines deep learning with TDA models, such as persistent Laplacians (PL) to extract detailed topological and geometric characteristics of PPIs, thereby enhancing the prediction of DMS and binding free energy (BFE) changes upon virus mutations. Validation with four experimental DMS datasets of SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding domain (RBD) and the human angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) complexes indicates that our AF3-assisted MT-TopLap strategy maintains robust performance, with only an average 1.1% decrease in Pearson correlation coefficients (PCC) and an average 9.3% increase in root mean square errors (RMSE), compared with the use of experimental structures. Additionally, AF3-assisted MT-TopLap achieved a PCC of 0.81 when tested with a SARS-CoV-2 HK.3 variant DMS dataset, confirming its capability to accurately predict BFE changes and adapt to new experimental data, thereby showcasing its potential for rapid and effective response to fast viral evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf026"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12063592/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144029703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Similarity-weighted entropy for quantifying genetic diversity in viral quasispecies.","authors":"Jian Wu","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A viral quasispecies is a genetically diverse population of closely related viral variants that exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium. This diversity, driven by mutations, recombination, and selective pressures, enables viruses to adapt rapidly, affecting pathogenicity and treatment resistance. Quantifying the genetic diversity within viral quasispecies is therefore crucial for understanding viral evolution and for designing effective therapeutic strategies. Entropy is a commonly used metric to measure genetic diversity within such populations; however, traditional entropy calculations often neglect genetic similarities between sequences, which can result in overestimating true diversity. In this study, I compare several widely used diversity indices for quantifying viral quasispecies diversity and introduce a novel similarity-weighted entropy metric that incorporates sequence similarity into entropy calculations. This approach enables a more comprehensive representation of diversity in genetically cohesive viral populations. By applying both conventional and similarity-weighted entropy calculations to hypothetical sequence populations and real viroid and virus quasispecies, I demonstrate that similarity-weighted entropy provides a more comprehensive measure of genetic diversity while maintaining the simplicity of conventional entropy. These findings highlight the value of similarity-weighted entropy in characterizing viral quasispecies and its potential to improve our understanding of viral adaptation and resistance mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf029"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12079039/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144082343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolution and adaptation of dengue virus in response to high-temperature passaging in mosquito cells.","authors":"Fhallon Ware-Gilmore, Matthew J Jones, Austin J Mejia, Nina L Dennington, Michelle D Audsley, Matthew D Hall, Carla M Sgrò, Theresa Buckley, Ganesh S Anand, Joyce Jose, Elizabeth A McGraw","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The incidence of arboviral diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever continues to rise in association with the expanding geographic ranges of their vectors, <i>Aedes aegypti</i> and <i>Aedes albopictus</i>. The distribution of these vectors is believed to be driven in part by climate change and increasing urbanization. Arboviruses navigate a wide range of temperatures as they transition from ectothermic vectors (from 15°C to 35°C) to humans (37°C) and back again, but the role that temperature plays in driving the evolution of arboviruses remains largely unknown. Here, we passaged replicate dengue serotype-2 virus populations 10 times at either 26°C (Low) or 37°C (High) in C6/36 <i>Aedes albopictus</i> cells to explore the differences in adaptation to these thermal environments. We then deep-sequenced the resulting passaged dengue virus populations and tested their replicative fitness in an all-cross temperature regime. We also assessed the ability of the passaged viruses to replicate in the insect vector. While viruses from both thermal regimes accumulated substitutions, only those reared in the 37°C treatments exhibited nonsynonymous changes, including several in the E, or envelope protein, and multiple non-structural genes. Passaging at the higher temperature also led to reduced replicative ability at 26°C in both cells and mosquitoes. One of the mutations in the E gene involved the loss of a glycosylation site previously shown to reduce infectivity in the vector. These findings suggest that viruses selected for growth at higher ambient temperatures may experience tradeoffs between thermostability and replication in the vector. Such associations might also have implications for the suitability of virus transmission under a changing climate.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf016"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12054504/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144065313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Virome of <i>Hyalomma</i> and <i>Rhipicephalus</i> ticks from desert of Northwestern China.","authors":"Ning Wang, Shan Lu, Run-Ze Ye, Cheng Li, Jiang-He Huang, Gang Ye, Yu-Yu Li, Shi-Jing Shen, Xiao-Yu Shi, Dai-Yun Zhu, Wenqiang Shi, Lin Zhao, Na Jia, Jia-Fu Jiang, Xiao-Ming Cui, Yi Sun, Wu-Chun Cao","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ticks are important vectors for pathogen transmission, yet studies on the diversity and distribution of viruses carried by ticks in desert regions remain limited. This study investigated the tick virome in desert areas of Xinjiang, China, and identified two tick species, <i>Hyalomma asiaticum</i> and <i>Rhipicephalus turanicus</i>. A total of 30 meta-transcriptome sequencing libraries were constructed from ticks pooled by location, tick species, sex, and host. The proportion of viral reads ranged from 0.004% to 0.165%, and significant differences in viral alpha- and beta-diversity were observed between the two tick species. A total of 125 complete or nearly complete viral genomes were classified into 5 families of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses, 6 families of negative-sense single-stranded RNA viruses, and 2 families of double-stranded RNA viruses. Twenty-eight viral species were identified, including 20 known viruses and 8 novel viruses from the genera <i>Orthonairovirus, Quaranjavirus</i>, and <i>Mitovirus</i>, and families <i>Peribunyaviridae</i> and <i>Narnaviridae</i>. Notably, the discovery of Desert orthonairovirus, Desert quaranjavirus, and Desert peribunya-like virus revealed a potential new role for desert ticks as viral vectors. Among the other 25 viruses, 12 were specific to <i>H. asiaticum</i>, and 9 were specific to <i>R. turanicus</i>. This study highlights the diversity of tick-borne viruses in Xinjiang's desert regions, their distribution across different tick species, and underscores the importance of these tick species in pathogen transmission. These findings provide scientific evidence for further research into viral circulation in desert ecosystems and the potential public health threats posed by tick-borne pathogens.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf022"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12068223/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144058565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatiotemporal dispersion of DENV-1 genotype V in Western Colombia.","authors":"Diana Rojas-Gallardo, Tyshawn Ferrell, Paula M Escobar-Pereira, Diego Lopez, Beatriz Giraldo, Juliana Restrepo-Chica, Erika Jimenez-Posada, Marlen Martinez-Gutierrez, Julian Ruiz-Sáenz, Autum Key, Nima Shariatzadeh, Dara Khosravi, Megan A Martinez, Andrei Bombin, Jesse J Waggoner, Jorge E Osorio, Christopher J Neufeldt, Matthew H Collins, Jaime A Cardona-Ospina, Anne Piantadosi","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf018","DOIUrl":"10.1093/ve/veaf018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dengue virus (DENV) is a significant public health concern in Colombia, with increased transmission of DENV type 1 (DENV-1) in the departments of Risaralda and Valle del Cauca in the Central-West region of the country following a large outbreak in 2019. However, little is known about the source, genetic diversity, and evolution of circulating viruses. We obtained serum samples from individuals with acute DENV infection and analysed DENV-1 genetic diversity, phylodynamics, and phylogeography. We found that most viruses belonged to DENV-1 genotype V, and phylogenetic analysis revealed three distinct clades, each of which was most closely related to viruses from neighbouring departments of Colombia sampled over the last 5-10 years. Thus, the 2019 outbreak and subsequent DENV-1 circulation was not due to the introduction of a new lineage to the country but rather reflected local DENV-1 V dispersion and evolution. We identified amino acid positions under positive selection in structural proteins and NS1, which may have a role in immune evasion and pathogenesis. Overall, our analysis of DENV-1 V diversity, evolution, and spread within Colombia highlights the important role of genomic surveillance in understanding virus dynamics during endemic circulation and outbreaks.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf018"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12091148/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144112833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolution of Zika virus in <i>Rag1</i>-deficient mice selects for unique envelope glycosylation motif mutants that show enhanced replication fitness.","authors":"Eri Nakayama, Bing Tang, Romal Stewart, Abigail L Cox, Kexin Yan, Cameron R Bishop, Troy Dumenil, Wilson Nguyen, Andrii Slonchak, Julian Sng, Alexander A Khromykh, Viviana P Lutzky, Daniel J Rawle, Andreas Suhrbier","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf021","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>N-linked glycosylation of flavivirus envelope proteins is widely viewed as being required for optimal folding, processing and/or transit of envelope proteins, and the assembling virons, through the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the Golgi. Zika virus (ZIKV) has a single N-linked envelope glycan located adjacent to the fusion loop. Herein we show that independent serial passage of ZIKV_Natal in <i>Rag1</i> ^-/- mice for 223 or 386 days generated two unique envelope glycan-deficient mutants, ZIKV-V153D and ZIKV-N154D, respectively. Surprisingly, these mutants grew to titres ∼1 to 2.6 logs higher than the glycosylated parental ZIKV_Natal in Vero E6 cells and human brain organoids. RNA-Seq of infected organoids suggested that this increased replication fitness was associated with upregulation of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Cell death, cellular viral RNA, and viral protein levels were not significantly affected, arguing that these glycan mutants enjoyed faster ER/Golgi folding, processing, assembly, transit, and virion egress, assisted by an upregulated UPR. Thus, ZIKV envelope N-linked glycosylation is not essential for promoting envelope folding, assembly, and transit through the ER/Golgi, since aspartic acid (D) substitutions in the glycosylation motif can achieve this with significantly greater efficiency. Instead, the evolution of glycan mutants in <i>Rag1</i> ^-/- mice indicates that such envelope glycosylation can have a fitness cost in an environment devoid of virus-specific antibody responses. The V153D and N154D mutations, generated by natural selection in <i>Rag1</i> ^-/- mice, have to date not been employed in orthoflavivirus envelope glycosylation studies. Instead, genetic engineering has been used to generate mutant viruses that, for instance, contain a N154A substitution. The latter may impart confounding unfavourable properties, such as envelope protein insolubility, that have a detrimental impact on virus replication. The V153D and N154D substitutions may avoid imparting unfavourable properties by preserving the surface negative charge provided by the glycan moiety in the parental ZIKV_Natal envelope protein. In <i>Ifnar1</i> ^-/- mice ZIKV-V153D and -N154D showed faster viremia onsets, but reduced viremic periods, than the parental ZIKV_Natal, consistent with an established contention that such glycans have evolved to delay neutralizing antibody activity.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf021"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12024116/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144029615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Discovery of additional genomic segments reveals the fluidity of jingmenvirus genomic organization.","authors":"Coralie Valle, Rhys H Parry, Bruno Coutard, Agathe M G Colmant","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jingmenviruses are a distinct group of flavi-like viruses characterized by a genome consisting of four to five segments. Here, we report the discovery of three novel putative jingmenviruses, identified by mining publicly available metagenomics data from mosquito and arachnid samples. Strikingly, these novel jingmenvirus sequences contain up to six genomic segments, with pairs of homologous segments coding for putative structural proteins. Following this discovery, we found an additional homologous segment for two other jingmenvirus genomes, which had gone unnoticed in the initial publications. The presence of a single version of the segments coding for non-structural proteins suggests that we have indeed identified jingmenviruses with infectious units that contain up to six segments. We compared these novel jingmenvirus sequences to published sequences, in particular the segments with multiple open reading frames (ORFs), and we propose that the putative translation initiation mechanisms involved for these segments are ribosomal frameshift resulting in the fusion of ORFs and leaky scanning for overlapping ORFs. These putative mechanisms, conserved for all jingmenvirus sequences analysed, including in homologous segments, require biological confirmation. We also generated structural models of two putative structural proteins in the duplicated segments, and the corresponding alignments enabled us to confirm or identify the homologous relationship between sequences that shared limited nucleotide or amino acid identity. Altogether, these results highlight the fluid nature of jingmenviruses, which is a hallmark of multipartite viruses. Different combinations of segments packaged in different virus particles could facilitate the acquisition or loss of genomic segments and a segment duplication following genomic drift. Our data therefore contribute to the evidence of the multipartite nature of jingmenviruses and the evolutionary role this organization may play.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf023"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12036656/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144057495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ancient origins and global spread of domestic cat hepatitis B virus.","authors":"Edmilson F de Oliveira-Filho, Simon Franz Müller, Ianei O Carneiro, Otávio V de Carvalho, Alejandro Alfaro-Alarcón, Sebastian Brünink, Fagner D'ambroso Fernandes, Murilo H Anzolini Cassiano, Celia Pedroso, Felix Lehmann, Wendy K Jo, Andrés Moreira-Soto, Carlos Brites, Eduardo M Netto, Luiz E Ristow, Rita de Cassia Carvalho Maia, Fernanda S Flores Vogel, Nadia R de Almeida, Elisabeth Müller, Carlos R Franke, Jan Felix Drexler","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf025","DOIUrl":"10.1093/ve/veaf025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mammalian hepadnaviruses have likely been evolving alongside their hosts for millions of years. Domestic cat HBV (DCHBV) has been detected in cats from several countries, but its genealogy, epidemiology, and host range remain unclear. Besides DCHBV, the only hepadnavirus identified among carnivores is the ringtail HBV (RtHBV). Because there is a gap in the felid fossil record of approximately 5-7 million years between the late Oligocene and the early Miocene, carnivore-derived viruses might help to shed light on Felidae evolution. Here, we screened 2260 sera and 154 paraffin-embedded liver samples from cats and 2123 sera from dogs sampled in Europe and South and Central America between 2018 and 2020 by PCR for DCHBV. We identified DCHBV genotype A (GtA) in 0.6% (7/1,195; 95% CI, 0.2-1.2) of cats sampled in Germany, France, Croatia, and Bulgaria and a genetically divergent DCHBV genotype B (GtB; 10.8% genomic sequence distance) in 0.2% of cats (2/1,065; 95% CI, 0.0-0.7) from Brazil. The detection rates of the two genotypes did not differ significantly (Fisher, <i>P</i> = .19). Viral loads ranged from 4 × 10¹-6 × 10⁶ for DCHBV GtA to 5-7 × 10³ for DCHBV GtB DNA copies per milliliter of serum. None of the cat livers or dog sera tested positive by PCR. Immunoglobulin G against the DCHBV core antigen (anti-DCHBc) was detected in 8/504 cat sera (1.6%; 95% CI, 0.7-3.1), without significant variation between countries (χ², <i>P</i> = .17), and in none of 180 dog sera by indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA). Neither IFA (Fisher, <i>P</i> = .11; <i>n</i> = 311) nor PCR (Fisher, <i>P</i> = .63; <i>n</i> = 699) positivity was significantly associated with increased liver enzymes in cats, respectively. Coevolutionary reconciliations of virus and host phylogenies and Bayesian hypothesis testing suggested evolutionary origins of DCHBV during the Miocene, ∼8-17 million years ago (mya) from ancestral carnivores, consistent with long-term evolution. The long-term association of DCHBV with felines aids in elucidating orthohepadnaviral infection patterns and felid genealogy.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf025"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12091157/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144112831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cameroonian blackflies (Diptera: Simuliidae) harbour a plethora of RNA viruses.","authors":"Lander De Coninck, Amber Hadermann, Ludovica Ingletto, Robert Colebunders, Kongnyu Gamnsi Njamnshi, Alfred Kongnyu Njamnshi, John L Mokili, Joseph Nelson Siewe Fodjo, Jelle Matthijnssens","doi":"10.1093/ve/veaf024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaf024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Strong epidemiological evidence suggests that onchocerciasis may be associated with epilepsy-hence the name onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy (OAE). However, the pathogenesis of OAE still needs to be elucidated, as recent studies have failed to detect <i>Onchocerca volvulus</i> in the central nervous system of persons with OAE. Therefore, it was suggested that a potentially neurotropic virus transmitted by blackflies could play a role in triggering OAE. To investigate this hypothesis, adult blackflies were collected in an onchocerciasis-endemic area with a high OAE prevalence in the Ntui Health District, Cameroon. A viral particle-based shotgun sequencing approach was used to detect viral sequences in 55 pools of 10 blackflies. A very high abundance of viral reads was detected across multiple (novel) viral families, including viral families associated with human disease. Although no genomes closely related to known neurotropic viruses were found in the blackfly virome, the plethora of novel viruses representing novel species, genera and even families warrant further exploration for their potential to infect vertebrates. These results could serve as a first step for studying the viruses associated with the haematophagous blackfly, which also could be present in their nematode host <i>O. volvulus</i>. Exploring the diversity of viruses in blackflies should be included in the active surveillance of zoonotic diseases.</p>","PeriodicalId":56026,"journal":{"name":"Virus Evolution","volume":"11 1","pages":"veaf024"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12048880/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144063496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}