Abstract
Hantaviruses are among the most important zoonotic pathogens of humans and the subject of heightened global attention. Despite the importance of hantaviruses for public health, there is no consensus on their evolutionary history and especially the frequency of virus-host co-divergence versus cross-species virus transmission. Documenting the extent of hantavirus biodiversity, and particularly their range of mammalian hosts, is critical to resolving this issue. Here, we describe four novel hantaviruses (Huangpi virus, Lianghe virus, Longquan virus, and Yakeshi virus) sampled from bats and shrews in China, and which are distinct from other known hantaviruses. Huangpi virus was found in Pipistrellus abramus, Lianghe virus in Anourosorex squamipes, Longquan virus in Rhinolophus affinis, Rhinolophus sinicus, and Rhinolophus monoceros, and Yakeshi virus in Sorex isodon, respectively. A phylogenetic analysis of the available diversity of hantaviruses reveals the existence of four phylogroups that infect a range of mammalian hosts, as well as the occurrence of ancient reassortment events between the phylogroups. Notably, the phylogenetic histories of the viruses are not always congruent with those of their hosts, suggesting that cross-species transmission has played a major role during hantavirus evolution and at all taxonomic levels, although we also noted some evidence for virus-host co-divergence. Our phylogenetic analysis also suggests that hantaviruses might have first appeared in Chiroptera (bats) or Soricomorpha (moles and shrews), before emerging in rodent species. Overall, these data indicate that bats are likely to be important natural reservoir hosts of hantaviruses.
Highlights
Emerging infectious diseases have a substantial and ongoing impact on public health and agricultural production [1,2,3]
We describe four novel hantaviruses (Huangpi virus, Lianghe virus, Longquan virus, and Yakeshi virus) that were sampled from bats and shrews in China
An evolutionary analysis of all known hantaviruses including the novel viruses described here reveals the existence of four distinct phylogenetic groups of viruses that infect a range of mammalian hosts, and which have sometimes exchanged genes through segment reassortment
Summary
Emerging infectious diseases have a substantial and ongoing impact on public health and agricultural production [1,2,3]. A major goal of infectious disease research is to characterize those unknown pathogens circulating in animal host reservoirs before they emerge in human populations [6,7]. Hantaviruses (genus Hantavirus, family Bunyaviridae) are the etiological agent(s) of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in humans [8]. Only rodent-borne viruses have been shown to cause human diseases, namely HFRS in Eurasia and HPS in the Americas [8]. As the phylogeny of the rodent-borne hantaviruses appears to be largely congruent with that of subfamily Muridae and family Cricetidae of Muroidea, hantaviruses are often considered to have co-diverged with their rodents hosts over time-scales of millions of years [12,13,14,15]
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