Intrasegmental Recombination As an Evolutionary Force of Lassa Fever Virus

Overview

Journal Front Microbiol

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2024 Jun 4

PMID 38832113

Authors

Cheng-Qiang He

Chao Kong

Mei He

Guan-Xiang Chen

Shu-Min Liu

Nai-Zheng Ding

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Lassa fever (LF), caused by Lassa virus (LASV), is one of the most dangerous diseases to public health. Homologous recombination (HR) is a basic genetic power driving biological evolution. However, as a negative-stranded RNA virus, it is unknown whether HR occurs between LASVs and its influence on the outbreak of LF. In this study, after analyzing 575 S and 433 L segments of LASV collected in Africa, we found that LASV can achieve HR in both of its segments. Interestingly, although the length of S segment is less than half of the L segment, the proportion of LASVs with S recombinants is significantly higher than that with L recombinants. These results suggest that HR may be a feature of LASV, which can be set by natural selection to produce beneficial or eliminate harmful mutations for the virus, so it plays a role in LASV evolution during the outbreak of LF.

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