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Influenza A(H11N2) Virus Detection in Fecal Samples from Adélie ( Pygoscelis adeliae) and Chinstrap ( Pygoscelis antarcticus) Penguins, Penguin Island, Antarctica. Microbiol Spectr 2022; 10:e0142722. [PMID: 36121294 PMCID: PMC9603087 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01427-22] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Influenza A viruses infect a range of host species, including a large variety of mammals and more than a hundred species of birds. A total of 95 avian fecal samples were collected from penguin colonies in the South Shetland Islands, close to the Antarctic Peninsula, and tested by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) to detect avian influenza viruses (AIVs). Five out of seven samples collected from Penguin Island were positive for AIVs. Analysis of the genomes recovered from four samples revealed the detection of influenza A(H11N2) virus in fecal samples from Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) and from a colony of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus). Bayesian phylogeographic analysis revealed the clustering of all currently available H11N2 samples from Antarctica's avifauna in a single cluster that emerged at least in the early 2010s, suggesting its continued circulation on the continent. Our results reinforce the need for continuous surveillance of avian influenza on the Antarctic continent. IMPORTANCE Although wild birds play a role in the transmission and ecology of avian influenza viruses (AIVs) across the globe, there are significant gaps in our understanding of the worldwide distribution of these viruses in polar environments. In this study, using molecular analysis and full-genome sequencing, we describe the detection of distinct influenza A(H11N2) viruses in fecal samples of penguins in the Southern Shetland Islands, Antarctica. We emphasize the need for virus monitoring as AIVs may have implications for the health of endemic fauna and the potential risk of the introduction of highly pathogenic AIVs to the continent.
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Ariyama N, Tapia R, Godoy C, Agüero B, Valdés V, Berrios F, García Borboroglu P, Pütz K, Alegria R, Barriga GP, Medina R, Neira V. Avian orthoavulavirus 1 (Newcastle Disease virus) antibodies in five penguin species, Antarctic peninsula and Southern Patagonia. Transbound Emerg Dis 2021; 68:3096-3102. [PMID: 33587778 DOI: 10.1111/tbed.14037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2020] [Revised: 02/06/2021] [Accepted: 02/11/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Avian orthoavulavirus 1 (AOaV-1) causes Newcastle disease, one of the most important and contagious infections in poultry, where migratory birds can play a key role as a reservoir. Seven hundred and seven serum samples were collected from five penguin species (King, Magellanic, Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins) in the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic zones. Using a competitive ELISA to detect antibodies against AOaV-1, we identified positive individuals in all penguin species. The Magellanic penguin showed the highest seropositivity rate (30.3%), suggesting it could be a natural reservoir of this virus. At the Antarctic zones, Chinstrap penguin showed the highest occurrence (7.5%). Interesting, positive sera was only obtained in Sub-Antarctic and Northern zones at the Antarctic peninsula, no seroreactivity was observed in Southern locations. Further studies are needed to establish the role of these penguin species in the epidemiology of the AOaV-1 and determine the effects of this virus in these populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naomi Ariyama
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Rodrigo Tapia
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Claudia Godoy
- Global Penguin Society, San Francisco, CA, USA.,Parque Pingüino Rey, Porvenir, Chile
| | - Belén Agüero
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Valentina Valdés
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Felipe Berrios
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | | | | | - Raul Alegria
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Gonzalo P Barriga
- Departamento de Enfermedades Infecciosas e Inmunología Pediátrica, Escuela de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.,Laboratory of Emerging Viruses, Virology Program, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Rafael Medina
- Departamento de Enfermedades Infecciosas e Inmunología Pediátrica, Escuela de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.,Department of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
| | - Víctor Neira
- Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
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Identification and Distribution of Novel Cressdnaviruses and Circular molecules in Four Penguin Species in South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Viruses 2020; 12:v12091029. [PMID: 32947826 PMCID: PMC7551938 DOI: 10.3390/v12091029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2020] [Revised: 09/11/2020] [Accepted: 09/14/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
There is growing interest in uncovering the viral diversity present in wild animal species. The remote Antarctic region is home to a wealth of uncovered microbial diversity, some of which is associated with its megafauna, including penguin species, the dominant avian biota. Penguins interface with a number of other biota in their roles as marine mesopredators and several species overlap in their ranges and habitats. To characterize the circular single-stranded viruses related to those in the phylum Cressdnaviricota from these environmental sentinel species, cloacal swabs (n = 95) were obtained from King Penguins in South Georgia, and congeneric Adélie Penguins, Chinstrap Penguins, and Gentoo Penguins across the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula. Using a combination of high-throughput sequencing, abutting primers-based PCR recovery of circular genomic elements, cloning, and Sanger sequencing, we detected 97 novel sequences comprising 40 ssDNA viral genomes and 57 viral-like circular molecules from 45 individual penguins. We present their detection patterns, with Chinstrap Penguins harboring the highest number of new sequences. The novel Antarctic viruses identified appear to be host-specific, while one circular molecule was shared between sympatric Chinstrap and Gentoo Penguins. We also report viral genotype sharing between three adult-chick pairs, one in each Pygoscelid species. Sequence similarity network approaches coupled with Maximum likelihood phylogenies of the clusters indicate the 40 novel viral genomes do not fall within any known viral families and likely fall within the recently established phylum Cressdnaviricota based on their replication-associated protein sequences. Similarly, 83 capsid protein sequences encoded by the viruses or viral-like circular molecules identified in this study do not cluster with any of those encoded by classified viral groups. Further research is warranted to expand knowledge of the Antarctic virome and would help elucidate the importance of viral-like molecules in vertebrate host evolution.
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Identification of Circovirus Genome in a Chinstrap Penguin ( Pygoscelis antarcticus) and Adélie Penguin ( Pygoscelis adeliae) on the Antarctic Peninsula. Viruses 2020; 12:v12080858. [PMID: 32781620 PMCID: PMC7472332 DOI: 10.3390/v12080858] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2020] [Revised: 08/01/2020] [Accepted: 08/03/2020] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Circoviruses infect a variety of animal species and have small (~1.8–2.2 kb) circular single-stranded DNA genomes. Recently a penguin circovirus (PenCV) was identified associated with an Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) with feather disorder and in the cloacal swabs of three asymptomatic Adélie Penguins at Cape Crozier, Antarctica. A total of 75 cloacal swab samples obtained from adults and chicks of three species of penguin (genus: Pygoscelis) from seven Antarctic breeding colonies (South Shetland Islands and Western Antarctic Peninsula) in the 2015−2016 breeding season were screened for PenCV. We identified new variants of PenCV in one Adélie Penguin and one Chinstrap Penguin (Pygoscelis antarcticus) from Port Charcot, Booth Island, Western Antarctic Peninsula, a site home to all three species of Pygoscelid penguins. These two PenCV genomes (length of 1986 nucleotides) share > 99% genome-wide nucleotide identity with each other and share ~87% genome-wide nucleotide identity with the PenCV sequences described from Adélie Penguins at Cape Crozier ~4400 km away in East Antarctica. We did not find any evidence of recombination among PenCV sequences. This is the first report of PenCV in Chinstrap Penguins and the first detection outside of Ross Island, East Antarctica. Given the limited knowledge on Antarctic animal viral diversity, future samples from Antarctic wildlife should be screened for these and other viruses to determine the prevalence and potential impact of viral infections.
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Levy H, Fiddaman SR, Vianna JA, Noll D, Clucas GV, Sidhu JKH, Polito MJ, Bost CA, Phillips RA, Crofts S, Miller GD, Pistorius P, Bonnadonna F, Le Bohec C, Barbosa A, Trathan P, Raya Rey A, Frantz LAF, Hart T, Smith AL. Evidence of Pathogen-Induced Immunogenetic Selection across the Large Geographic Range of a Wild Seabird. Mol Biol Evol 2020; 37:1708-1726. [PMID: 32096861 PMCID: PMC7253215 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Over evolutionary time, pathogen challenge shapes the immune phenotype of the host to better respond to an incipient threat. The extent and direction of this selection pressure depend on the local pathogen composition, which is in turn determined by biotic and abiotic features of the environment. However, little is known about adaptation to local pathogen threats in wild animals. The Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) is a species complex that lends itself to the study of immune adaptation because of its circumpolar distribution over a large latitudinal range, with little or no admixture between different clades. In this study, we examine the diversity in a key family of innate immune genes-the Toll-like receptors (TLRs)-across the range of the Gentoo penguin. The three TLRs that we investigated present varying levels of diversity, with TLR4 and TLR5 greatly exceeding the diversity of TLR7. We present evidence of positive selection in TLR4 and TLR5, which points to pathogen-driven adaptation to the local pathogen milieu. Finally, we demonstrate that two positively selected cosegregating sites in TLR5 are sufficient to alter the responsiveness of the receptor to its bacterial ligand, flagellin. Taken together, these results suggest that Gentoo penguins have experienced distinct pathogen-driven selection pressures in different environments, which may be important given the role of the Gentoo penguin as a sentinel species in some of the world's most rapidly changing environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hila Levy
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | | | - Juliana A Vianna
- Departamento de Ecosistemas y Medio Ambiente, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Macul, Santiago, Chile
| | - Daly Noll
- Departamento de Ecosistemas y Medio Ambiente, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Macul, Santiago, Chile
- Departamento de Ciencias Ecológicas, Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Gemma V Clucas
- Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
| | | | - Michael J Polito
- Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
| | - Charles A Bost
- Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), UMR 7372 du CNRS‐Université de La Rochelle, Villiers‐en‐Bois, France
| | | | - Sarah Crofts
- Falklands Conservation, Stanley, Falkland Islands, United Kingdom
| | - Gary D Miller
- Microbiology and Immunology, PALM, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia
| | - Pierre Pistorius
- DST/NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute for African Ornithology, Department of Zoology, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
| | - Francesco Bonnadonna
- CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, EPHE, Montpellier, France
| | - Céline Le Bohec
- Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, Strasbourg, France
- Département de Biologie Polaire, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monaco, Principality of Monaco
| | - Andrés Barbosa
- Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, CSIC, Madrid, Spain
| | - Phil Trathan
- British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Andrea Raya Rey
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas – Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
- Instituto de Ciencias Polares, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
- Wildlife Conservation Society, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Laurent A F Frantz
- School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Tom Hart
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Adrian L Smith
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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Sommers P, Fontenele RS, Kringen T, Kraberger S, Porazinska DL, Darcy JL, Schmidt SK, Varsani A. Single-Stranded DNA Viruses in Antarctic Cryoconite Holes. Viruses 2019; 11:E1022. [PMID: 31689942 PMCID: PMC6893807 DOI: 10.3390/v11111022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2019] [Revised: 10/28/2019] [Accepted: 10/31/2019] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Antarctic cryoconite holes, or small melt-holes in the surfaces of glaciers, create habitable oases for isolated microbial communities with tightly linked microbial population structures. Viruses may influence the dynamics of polar microbial communities, but the viromes of the Antarctic cryoconite holes have yet to be characterized. We characterize single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses from three cryoconite holes in the Taylor Valley, Antarctica, using metagenomics. Half of the assembled metagenomes cluster with those in the viral family Microviridae (n = 7), and the rest with unclassified circular replication associated protein (Rep)-encoding single-stranded (CRESS) DNA viruses (n = 7). An additional 18 virus-like circular molecules encoding either a Rep, a capsid protein gene, or other unidentified but viral-like open reading frames were identified. The samples from which the genomes were identified show a strong gradient in microbial diversity and abundances, and the number of viral genomes detected in each sample mirror that gradient. Additionally, one of the CRESS genomes assembled here shares ~90% genome-wide pairwise identity with a virus identified from a freshwater pond on the McMurdo Ice Shelf (Antarctica). Otherwise, the similarity of these viruses to those previously identified is relatively low. Together, these patterns are consistent with the presence of a unique regional virome present in fresh water host populations of the McMurdo Dry Valley region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pacifica Sommers
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
| | - Rafaela S Fontenele
- The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5001, USA.
| | - Tayele Kringen
- The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5001, USA.
| | - Simona Kraberger
- The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5001, USA.
| | - Dorota L Porazinska
- Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
| | - John L Darcy
- Division of Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA.
| | - Steven K Schmidt
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
| | - Arvind Varsani
- The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5001, USA.
- Structural Biology Research Unit, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Observatory, Cape Town 7701, South Africa.
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