Ebola Virus Ecology

McCormick, Joseph B.

doi:10.1086/425429

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Blood samples taken from both human [11] and non-human primates [17] suggest that some filovirus was already present in western equatorial Africa before the mid-1990s ape die-offs. Unfortunately, the serological tests employed were not specific to ZEBOV [31]. Therefore, it is impossible to tell whether these positive results were caused by a virus with a very recent common ancestor of the lineage we know as ZEBOV or by some more distantly related virus that is cross-reactive.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wave-Like Spread of Ebola Zaire

2005

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In the past decade the Zaire strain of Ebola virus (ZEBOV) has emerged repeatedly into human populations in central Africa and caused massive die-offs of gorillas and chimpanzees. We tested the view that emergence events are independent and caused by ZEBOV variants that have been long resident at each locality. Phylogenetic analyses place the earliest known outbreak at Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo, very near to the root of the ZEBOV tree, suggesting that viruses causing all other known outbreaks evolved from a Yambuku-like virus after 1976. The tendency for earlier outbreaks to be directly ancestral to later outbreaks suggests that outbreaks are epidemiologically linked and may have occurred at the front of an advancing wave. While the ladder-like phylogenetic structure could also bear the signature of positive selection, our statistical power is too weak to reach a conclusion in this regard. Distances among outbreaks indicate a spread rate of about 50 km per year that remains consistent across spatial scales. Viral evolution is clocklike, and sequences show a high level of small-scale spatial structure. Genetic similarity decays with distance at roughly the same rate at all spatial scales. Our analyses suggest that ZEBOV has recently spread across the region rather than being long persistent at each outbreak locality. Controlling the impact of Ebola on wild apes and human populations may be more feasible than previously recognized.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wave-Like Spread of Ebola Zaire

2005

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“…Lassa virus, like LCMV, belongs to the large family of Arenaviridae comprising also other important human pathogens, like the viruses causing Argentine and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. Lassa virus causes annually up to 100 000 cases of clinically apparent Lassa fever in West Africa, with 10^20% of the patients developing hemorrhagic manifestations and a total mortality of about 15% [8,9]. This disease is increasingly exported from endemic regions to other parts of the world [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signal peptide of Lassa virus glycoprotein GP‐C exhibits an unusual length

Eichler¹,

Lenz²,

Strecker³

et al. 2003

FEBS Letters

108

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Lassa virus glycoprotein is synthesized as precursor GP-C into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum and cleaved posttranslationally into the N-terminal subunit GP-1 and the C-terminal subunit GP-2 by subtilase SKI-1/S1P. The N-terminal portion of the primary translation product preGP-C contains a signal peptide of unknown length. In order to demonstrate the signal peptide cleavage site, puri¢ed viral GP-1 isolated from Lassa virus particles was N-terminally sequenced as TSLYKGV, identical to amino acids 59^65 of GP-C. Mutational analysis of the amino acid residues £anking the putative cleavage site led to non-cleavable preGP-C indicating that no other signal peptide cleavage site exists. Interestingly, GP-C mutants with a non-cleavable signal peptide were not further processed by SKI-1/S1P. This observation suggests that the signal peptide cleavage is necessary for GP-C maturation and hence for Lassa virus replication.

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“…Earlier, the site of this cleavage had been indicated by the same group as RRLL 259 sGTF [20]. Lassa virus, a member of the arenavirus family, mostly found in West Africa, causes hemorrhagic fever with £u-like symptoms, replication in the cytoplasm, and bud-ding at the plasma membrane [21,22]. Between 100 000 and 500 000 cases have been reported annually, with a mortality rate of V15%, particularly among the pregnant women, while their fetuses have the highest rate of mortality (92^100%).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Between 100 000 and 500 000 cases have been reported annually, with a mortality rate of V15%, particularly among the pregnant women, while their fetuses have the highest rate of mortality (92^100%). Infection is generally caused by exposure to the virus via infected feces, saliva, etc., through broken skin and mucous membranes [19,21,22]. To further con¢rm the role of SKI-1 in the proteolytic activation of GP-C and to develop a rapid bioassay for its activity, we prepared an internally quenched £uorogenic (IQF) peptide [7,23,24] encompassing the GP-C cleavage site.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A rapid fluorometric assay for the proteolytic activity of SKI‐1/S1P based on the surface glycoprotein of the hemorrhagic fever Lassa virus

2002

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The subtilase subtilisin kexin isozyme-1 (SKI-1)/site 1 protease (S1P), has been implicated in the processing of Lassa virus glycoprotein C (GP-C) precursor into GP1 and GP2 that are responsible for viral fusion with the host cell membrane. Here, we studied in vitro the kinetics of this cleavage by hSKI-1 using an intramolecularly quenched fluorogenic (IQF) peptide, Q-GPC 251À263 [Abz-251 Asp-Ile-Tyr-Ile-Ser-Arg-Arg-LeuLeus sGly-Thr-Phe-Thr 263 -3-NitroTyr-Ala-CONH 2 ], containing the identified site. The measured V max app /K m app was compared to those for other IQF SKI-substrates. Q-GPC 251À263 is cleaved 10-fold more efficiently than the previously known best SKI-substrate, Q-hproSKI 134À142 . This study confirmed the role of SKI-1 in GP-C processing and provides a novel, rapid and efficient enzymatic assay of SKI-1. ß

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Ebola Virus Ecology

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Wave-Like Spread of Ebola Zaire

Wave-Like Spread of Ebola Zaire

Signal peptide of Lassa virus glycoprotein GP‐C exhibits an unusual length

A rapid fluorometric assay for the proteolytic activity of SKI‐1/S1P based on the surface glycoprotein of the hemorrhagic fever Lassa virus

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