Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Cuypers, Laura N.
• Gryseels, Sophie
• Van Houtte, Natalie
• Baird, Stuart J.E.
• Sabuni, Christopher A.
• Katakweba, Abdul S.
• van den Burg, Sebastiaan R.M.
• Bryja, Josef
• Leirs, Herwig
• Goüy de Bellocq, Joëlle

Titel

Subspecific rodent taxa as the relevant host taxonomic level for mammarenavirus host specificity

Ist Teil von

• Virology (New York, N.Y.), 2023-04, Vol.581, p.116-127

Ort / Verlag

United States: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Mastomys natalensis-borne mammarenaviruses appear specific to subspecific M. natalensis taxa rather than to the whole species. Yet mammarenaviruses carried by M. natalensis are known to spill over and jump hosts in northern sub-Saharan Africa. Phylogeographic studies increasingly show that, like M. natalensis, small mammals in sub-Saharan Africa are often genetically structured into several subspecific taxa. Other mammarenaviruses may thus also form virus-subspecific host taxon associations. To investigate this, and if mammarenaviruses carried by M. natalensis in southern Africa are less prone to spill-over, we screened 1225 non-M. natalensis samples from Tanzania where many small mammal taxa meet. We found mammarenavirus RNA in 6 samples. Genetic/genomic characterisation confirmed they were not spill-over from M. natalensis. We detected host jumps among rodent tribe members and an association between mammarenaviruses and subspecific taxa of Mus minutoides and Grammomys surdaster, indicating host genetic structure may be crucial to understand virus distribution and host specificity. [Display omitted] •No detected mammarenavirus spill-over from Mastomys natalensis in southeast Africa.•Genomic characterisation of 3 mammarenaviruses from M. minutoides and G. surdaster.•Subspecific taxa appear the relevant host taxonomic level for some mammarenaviruses.•Most mammarenavirus host jumps among hosts of the same rodent tribe.