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. 2022 Dec 22;8(2):veac112.
doi: 10.1093/ve/veac112. eCollection 2022.

Phylogeographic analysis of Tula hantavirus highlights a single introduction to central Europe

Valentina Cirkovic  1 , Simon Dellicour  2   3 , Gorana Stamenkovic  4 , Marina Siljic  1 , Ana Gligic  5 , Maja Stanojevic  1
Affiliations

Phylogeographic analysis of Tula hantavirus highlights a single introduction to central Europe

Valentina Cirkovic et al. Virus Evol. .

Abstract

Orthohantaviruses are zoonotic pathogens of humans, unique among the bunyaviruses in not being transmitted by an arthropod vector. Tula orthohantavirus (TULV) is an old-world hantavirus, of yet unclear human pathogenicity, with few reported cases of clinically relevant human infection. So far, phylogeographic studies exploring the global pathways of hantaviral migration are scarce and generally do not focus on a specific hantavirus species. The aim of the present study was to reconstruct the dispersal history of TULV lineages across Eurasia based on S segment sequences sampled from different geographic areas. Maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inference methods were used to perform the phylogenetic analysis and phylogeographic reconstructions. Sampling time and trapping localities were obtained for a total of 735 TULV S segment sequences available in public databases at the time of the study. The estimated substitution rate of the analyzed partial S segment alignment was 2.26 × 10-3 substitutions/site/year (95 per cent highest posterior density interval: 1.79 × 10-3 to 2.75 × 10-3). Continuous phylogeography of TULV S segment sequences placed the potential root and origin of TULV spread in the Black Sea region. In our study, we detect a single-lineage introduction of TULV to Europe, followed by local viral circulation further on.

Keywords: Eurasia; Hantaviridae; Tula hantavirus; phylogeography.

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Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
ML phylogenetic tree generated by MEGA X software based on 543 nt S segment of 734 examined TULV sequences. In order to get better visibility of the tree, each branch was colored in accordance with the respective country. Clades consisting of three or more sequences originating from the same country are compressed. The numbers in bifurcations indicate bootstrap values (a value of >65 per cent was considered as strong nodal support). The tree was rooted with the PUUV reference strain NC005224.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Reconstructed spatiotemporal diffusion history of TULV in Europe and Asia; mapped MCC tree and 80 per cent HPD regions based on 1,000 trees regularly sampled from the post-burn-in posterior distribution of continuous phylogeographic analysis. Nodes of the MCC tree are colored according to their time of occurrence.
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