First Detection of an Enterovirus C99 in a Captive Chimpanzee with Acute Flaccid Paralysis, from the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, Republic of Congo.

Illich Manfred Mombo,Eric M Leroy,Lionel Brazier,François Renaud,Christian Drosten,Jan Felix Drexler,Bradley S Schneider,Joseph N Fair,Céline Arnathau,Tobias Bleicker,Sebastian Brünink,Alexander N Lukashev,Lucas Léger,Patrick Durand,Christiane Bouchier,Virginie Rougeron,Rebeca Atencia,Franck Prugnolle,Debby Cox,Nicolás Berthet

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136700

Abstract

Enteroviruses, members of the Picornaviridae family, are ubiquitous viruses responsible for mild to severe infections in human populations around the world. In 2010 Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo recorded an outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in the humans, caused by wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). One month later, in the Tchimpounga sanctuary near Pointe-Noire, a chimpanzee developed signs similar to AFP, with paralysis of the lower limbs. In the present work, we sought to identify the pathogen, including viral and bacterial agents, responsible for this illness. In order to identify the causative agent, we evaluated a fecal specimen by PCR and sequencing. A Human enterovirus C, specifically of the EV-C99 type was potentially responsible for the illness in this chimpanzee. To rule out other possible causative agents, we also investigated the bacteriome and the virome using next generation sequencing. The majority of bacterial reads obtained belonged to commensal bacteria (95%), and the mammalian virus reads matched mainly with viruses of the Picornaviridae family (99%), in which enteroviruses were the most abundant (99.6%). This study thus reports the first identification of a chimpanzee presenting AFP most likely caused by an enterovirus and demonstrates once again the cross-species transmission of a human pathogen to an ape.

Highlights

In the last few years, many pathogens capable of infecting humans, such as Ebola virus [1, 2], simian immunodeficiency viruses [3], respiratory viruses [4, 5], anthrax [6], herpes viruses [7] as well as enteroviruses [8, 9] have been identified in great apes
Since enteroviruses are often responsible for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in humans [31] and since an outbreak due to poliovirus occurred a year before in the human population in Republic of Congo (RC) [19], 50 kilometers from the site where AFP was registered in a chimpanzee, we decided to first screen for the poliovirus
We report the first identification of an Enterovirus C species (EV-C) associated with AFP in a chimpanzee

Summary

Introduction

In the last few years, many pathogens capable of infecting humans, such as Ebola virus [1, 2], simian immunodeficiency viruses [3], respiratory viruses [4, 5], anthrax [6], herpes viruses [7] as well as enteroviruses [8, 9] have been identified in great apes. Enteroviruses (EVs) are small non-enveloped viruses with positive single strand RNA genomes that belong to the Picornaviridae family. Human EV A-D have been detected in non-human primates, captive or wild Old World monkeys (such as Macaca sp, Cercopithecus sp, Cercocebus and Papio sp) and wild African great apes (Gorilla gorilla and Pan troglodytes) [8, 15,16,17]. Both known and novel types of human enteroviruses could be found in primates, indicating common cross-species transmission [18]

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