Frontiers in Microbiology (May 2024)

Intrasegmental recombination as an evolutionary force of Lassa fever virus

  • Cheng-Qiang He,
  • Chao Kong,
  • Mei He,
  • Guan-Xiang Chen,
  • Shu-Min Liu,
  • Nai-Zheng Ding

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1411537
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15

Abstract

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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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