First Genomic Evidence of a Henipa-like Virus in Brazil

Abstract

The viral genus Henipavirus includes two highly virulent zoonotic viruses of serious public health concern. Hendra henipavirus and Nipah henipavirus outbreaks are restricted to Australia and Southeast Asia, respectively. The Henipavirus genus comprises mostly bat-borne viruses, but exceptions have already been described as novel viruses with rodents and shrews as reservoir animals. In the Americas, scarce evidence supports the circulation of these viruses. In this communication, we report a novel henipa-like virus from opossums (Marmosa demerarae) from a forest fragment area in the Peixe-Boi municipality, Brazil, after which the virus was named the Peixe-Boi virus (PBV). The application of next-generation sequencing and metagenomic approach led us to discover the original evidence of a henipa-like virus genome in Brazil and South America and the original description of a henipa-like virus in marsupial species. These findings emphasize the importance of further studies to characterize PBV and clarify its ecology, impact on public health, and its relationship with didelphid marsupials and henipaviruses.

Keywords: henipavirus; marsupialia; metagenomics; opossums.

Figure 1

(A) Marmosa demerarae digital illustration. (B) Structural representation of Marmosa demerarae mithocondrial DNA. Internal values indicate the content of the nucleotide bases. Yellow, green, and red blocks indicate rRNA, PCGs, and tRNA, respectively. (C) Sample collection sites in the proximities of Ananin village, municipality of Peixe-Boi, Pará State, Brazil.

Figure 2

(A) Nucleotide alignment of four assembled contigs of PBV with NiV reference genome (NC_002728), and location of each contig within the L gene. (B) Amino acid alignment across henipaviruses and PBV sequence based on PBV partial L protein position between sites 393 and 1170 (2244 aa of NiV RefSeq). A major hypervariable region between sites 615 and 701 was deleted and ten conserved motifs are highlighted by blue annotations. (C) Nucleotide (white) and amino acid (gray) identities among henipaviruses and PBV.

Figure 3

Phylogenetic tree based on the translated Paramyxoviridae L gene RefSeq sequences, novel rodent and shrew-borne henipaviruses and Brazilian jeilongviruses sequences. PBV (in red) partial genome was detected in a pooled tissue sample of Marmosa demerarae. Each record consists of the virus species/name, accession number, country, and year of detection/isolation and next to the icon of the original host of detection/isolation. Orthoparamyxovirinae subfamily is represented with genera indicated by color. The other two subfamilies and Respirovirus genus are collapsed.

Figure 4

Boxplot graph of amino acid divergence among the members of the four genera closest to PBV (Henipavirus, Jeilongvirus, Narmovirus, and Morbillivirus) against each other (intragroup), and between them and PBV (intergroup).