Discovery and Prevalence of Divergent RNA Viruses in European Field Voles and Rabbits

• Published in: Viruses Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 47
• Main Authors: Tsoleridis, Theocharis, Chappell, Joseph G, Monchatre-Leroy, Elodie, Umhang, Gérald, Shi, Mang, Bennett, Malcolm, Tarlinton, Rachael E, McClure, C Patrick, Holmes, Edward C, Ball, Jonathan K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 31-12-2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Amino acids; Animal biology; Animals; Animals, Wild - virology; Arvicolinae - virology; Astroviridae - classification; Astroviridae - isolation & purification; astrovirus; Biodiversity; Coronaviruses; Divergence; Feeding Behavior; field voles; Genes; Genome, Viral; Hepatitis; Life Sciences; Metagenomics; Microbiology and Parasitology; Microtus agrestis; paramyxovirus; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; picorna-like virus; Picornaviridae - classification; Picornaviridae - isolation & purification; Prevalence; rabbits; Rabbits - virology; RNA viruses; RNA Viruses - classification; RNA Viruses - isolation & purification; RNA, Viral - genetics; Rodents; Rotavirus; rotavirus a; Santé publique et épidémiologie; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Software; Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy; United Kingdom; Veterinary medicine and animal Health; Virology; virus discovery; Viruses; United Kingdom; United Kingdom > UK; France; United States > US; Germany; field voles; astrovirus; rabbits; virus discovery; rotavirus A; picorna-like virus; rodents; paramyxovirus; Paramyxoviruses; Rabbits; Rotavirus A; Rodents; Virus discovery; Astroviruses; Picorna-like virus; Field voles
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v12010047

The advent of unbiased metagenomic virus discovery has revolutionized studies of virus biodiversity and evolution. Despite this, our knowledge of the virosphere, including in mammalian species, remains limited. We used unbiased metagenomic sequencing to identify RNA viruses in European field voles and rabbits. Accordingly, we identified a number of novel RNA viruses including astrovirus, rotavirus A, picorna-like virus and a morbilli-like paramyxovirus. In addition, we identified a sobemovirus and a novel luteovirus that likely originated from the rabbit diet. These newly discovered viruses were often divergent from those previously described. The novel astrovirus was most closely related to a virus sampled from the rodent-eating European roller bird (
). PCR screening revealed that the novel morbilli-like paramyxovirus in the UK field vole had a prevalence of approximately 4%, and shared common ancestry with other rodent morbilli-like viruses sampled globally. Two novel rotavirus A sequences were detected in a UK field vole and a French rabbit, the latter with a prevalence of 5%. Finally, a highly divergent picorna-like virus found in the gut of the French rabbit virus was only ~35% similar to an arilivirus at the amino acid level, suggesting the presence of a novel viral genus within the
.