In:
Nature Microbiology, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, Vol. 8, No. 1 ( 2023-01-05), p. 162-173
Abstract:
The increasing prevalence and expanding distribution of tick-borne viruses globally have raised health concerns, but the full repertoire of the tick virome has not been assessed. We sequenced the meta-transcriptomes of 31 different tick species in the Ixodidae and Argasidae families from across mainland China, and identified 724 RNA viruses with distinctive virome compositions among genera. A total of 1,801 assembled and complete or nearly complete viral genomes revealed an extensive diversity of genome architectures of tick-associated viruses, highlighting ticks as a reservoir of RNA viruses. We examined the phylogenies of different virus families to investigate virome evolution and found that the most diverse tick-associated viruses are positive-strand RNA virus families that demonstrate more ancient divergence than other arboviruses. Tick-specific viruses are often associated with only a few tick species, whereas virus clades that can infect vertebrates are found in a wider range of tick species. We hypothesize that tick viruses can exhibit both ‘specialist’ and ‘generalist’ evolutionary trends. We hope that our virome dataset will enable much-needed research on vertebrate-pathogenic tick-associated viruses.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
2058-5276
DOI:
10.1038/s41564-022-01275-w
Language:
English
Publisher:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2845610-5
