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Is the Bombali virus pathogenic in humans?

Martell, H.J., Masterson, Stuart G., McGreig, Jake M, Michaelis, Martin, Wass, Mark N. (2019) Is the Bombali virus pathogenic in humans? Bioinformatics, 35 (19). pp. 3553-3558. ISSN 1367-4803. (doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btz267) (KAR id:73757)

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Abstract

Motivation: The potential of the Bombali virus, a novel Ebolavirus, to cause disease in humans remains unknown. We have previously identified potential determinants of Ebolavirus pathogenicity in humans by analysing the amino acid positions that are differentially conserved (specificity 15 determining positions; SDPs) between human pathogenic Ebolaviruses and the non-pathogenic Reston virus. Here, we include the many Ebolavirus genome sequences that have since become available into our analysis and investigate the amino acid sequence of the Bombali virus proteins at the SDPs that discriminate between human pathogenic and non-human pathogenic Ebolaviruses. 20 Results: The use of 1408 Ebolavirus genomes (196 in the original analysis) resulted in a set of 166 SDPs (reduced from 180), 146 (88%) of which were retained from the original analysis. This indicates the robustness of our approach and refines the set of SDPs that distinguish human pathogenic Ebolaviruses from Reston virus. At SDPs, Bombali virus shared the majority of amino acids with the human pathogenic Ebolaviruses (63.25%). However, for two SDPs in VP24 (M136L, R139S) 25 that have been proposed to be critical for the lack of Reston virus human pathogenicity because they alter the VP24-karyopherin interaction, the Bombali virus amino acids match those of Reston virus. Thus, Bombali virus may not be pathogenic in humans. Supporting this, no Bombali virusassociated disease outbreaks have been reported, although Bombali virus was isolated from fruit bats cohabitating in close contact with humans, and anti-Ebolavirus antibodies that may indicate 30 contact with Bombali virus have been detected in humans.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btz267
Uncontrolled keywords: Ebola virus, bioinformatics
Subjects: Q Science > QL Zoology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Biosciences
Depositing User: Mark Wass
Date Deposited: 03 May 2019 16:15 UTC
Last Modified: 15 Jun 2022 03:13 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/73757 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Martell, H.J..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Masterson, Stuart G..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

McGreig, Jake M.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3068-5624
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Michaelis, Martin.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5710-5888
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Wass, Mark N..

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5428-6479
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
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