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Review
. 2022 Mar 25;14(4):677.
doi: 10.3390/v14040677.

Zoonotic Origins of Human Metapneumovirus: A Journey from Birds to Humans

Sonja T Jesse  1 , Martin Ludlow  1 , Albert D M E Osterhaus  1
Affiliations
Review

Zoonotic Origins of Human Metapneumovirus: A Journey from Birds to Humans

Sonja T Jesse et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Metapneumoviruses, members of the family Pneumoviridae, have been identified in birds (avian metapneumoviruses; AMPV's) and humans (human metapneumoviruses; HMPV's). AMPV and HMPV are closely related viruses with a similar genomic organization and cause respiratory tract illnesses in birds and humans, respectively. AMPV can be classified into four subgroups, A-D, and is the etiological agent of turkey rhinotracheitis and swollen head syndrome in chickens. Epidemiological studies have indicated that AMPV also circulates in wild bird species which may act as reservoir hosts for novel subtypes. HMPV was first discovered in 2001, but retrospective studies have shown that HMPV has been circulating in humans for at least 50 years. AMPV subgroup C is more closely related to HMPV than to any other AMPV subgroup, suggesting that HMPV has evolved from AMPV-C following zoonotic transfer. In this review, we present a historical perspective on the discovery of metapneumoviruses and discuss the host tropism, pathogenicity, and molecular characteristics of the different AMPV and HMPV subgroups to provide increased focus on the necessity to better understand the evolutionary pathways through which HMPV emerged as a seasonal endemic human respiratory virus.

Keywords: F protein; G protein; animal models; avian metapneumovirus; host tropism; human metapneumovirus; virus evolution.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Maximum likelihood phylogeny of metapneumovirus sequences. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using complete genome sequences from NCBI GenBank representing the different subgroups of AMPV and HMPV with orthopneumovirus sequences used as an outgroup. Maximum likelihood phylogeny was performed using a GTR + G model of nucleotide substitution. The tree was generated using bootstrap support of 1000 replications. The tip labels represent the NCBI GenBank accession numbers of respective virus strains, and the scale bar is proportional to the number of nucleotide substitutions per site.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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