Title
Absence of adaptive evolution is the main barrier against influenza emergence in horses in Asia despite frequent virus interspecies transmission from wild birds
Author(s)
Zhu, Henan;Damdinjav, Batchuluun;Gonzalez, Gaelle;Patrono, Livia Victoria;Ramirez-Mendoza, Humberto;Amat, Julien A. R.;Crispell, Joanna;Parr, Yasmin Amy;Hammond, Toni-ann;Shiilegdamba, Enkhtuvshin;Leung, Y. H. Connie;Peiris, Malik;Marshall, John F.;Hughes, Joseph;Gilbert, Martin;Murcia, Pablo R.
Published
2019
Publisher
PLoS Pathogens
Abstract
Author summary Viral diseases pose a constant threat to humans and animals. Occasionally, viruses establish in new hosts, sometimes with devastating consequences. While we still do not know what allows a virus to infect and become transmissible in a new population, it is clear that ecology and evolution play an important part in this process. Influenza A viruses (IAVs) constitute the archetypical example of emerging viruses: their main natural reservoir is in wild birds but they have also established in humans, pigs and horses. To better understand how IAVs circulate in nature we sequenced over twenty avian influenza viruses collected from wild birds in Mongolia. We show that these viruses are partially related to a virus that caused an equine influenza epizootic in 1989, that they can infect and replicate in the respiratory tract of the horse without causing any tissue damage, and that -based on serological evidence- horses in Mongolia have been regularly exposed to them over a broad geographical area without causing clinically evident outbreaks. We conclude that equine infections by avian viruses able to replicate in horses are more common than originally thought and that the failure to acquire key genetic changes is in this case the main barrier to disease emergence.
Keywords
Influenza A viruses;virus transmission
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PUB24430