Abstract
The close relations between dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and humans lay a foundation for cross species transmissions of viruses. The co-existence of multiplex viruses in the host accelerate viral variations. For effective prediction and prevention of potential epidemic or even pandemic, the metagenomics method was used to investigate the gut virome status of 45 domestic healthy dogs which have extensive contact with human beings. A total of 248.6 GB data (505, 203, 006 valid reads, 150 bp in length) were generated and 325, 339 contigs, which were best matched with viral genes, were assembled from 46, 832, 838 reads. In the aggregate, 9,834 contigs (3.02%) were confirmed for viruses. The top 30 contigs with the most reads abundance were mapped to DNA virus families Circoviridae, Parvoviridae and Herpesviridae; and RNA virus families Astroviridae, Coronaviridae and Picornaviridae, respectively. Numerous sequences were assigned to animal virus families of Astroviridae, Coronaviridae, Circoviridae, etc.; and phage families of Microviridae, Siphoviridae, Ackermannviridae, Podoviridae, Myoviridae and the unclassified phages. Further, several sequences were homologous with the insect and plant viruses, which reflects the diet and habitation of dogs. Significantly, canine coronavirus was uniquely identified in all the samples with high abundance, and the phylogenetic analysis therefore showed close relationship with the human coronavirus strain 229E and NL63, indicating the potential risk of canine coronavirus to infect humans by obtaining the ability of cross-species transmission. This study emphasizes the high detection frequency of virus harbored in the enteric tract of healthy contacted animal, and expands the knowledge of the viral diversity and the spectrum for further disease-association studies, which is meaningful for elucidating the epidemiological and biological role of companion animals in public health.
Highlights
Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), one of the most popular companion animals, have extensive interactions with humans through sharing spaces, occasionally biting and scratching, playing, and producing fecal waste
This research described the virome in fecal samples from 45 healthy dogs in metagenomics analysis by using generation sequencing (NGS) technique
Except for the current research, there were only two previous shotgun metagenomic studies investigating the fecal virome of dogs with diarrhea [42, 43]
Summary
Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), one of the most popular companion animals, have extensive interactions with humans through sharing spaces, occasionally biting and scratching, playing, and producing fecal waste. The infectious or zoonotic pathogens in infected dogs might transfer to human and cause infection after inadvertent ingestion. Canine distemper virus [8] and canine parvovirus (CPV2) [9, 10] are distributed globally and highly contagious Other viruses such as canine rotavirus [11], adenovirus, herpesvirus [12], influenza virus [13], papillomavirus [14] and parainfluenza virus [15] have been reported as potential dog pathogens. A better understood of the zoonotic pathogens and the health risk posed by domestic dogs would prompt to institute effective strategies more efficiently in the prevention of human infections
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