High Diversity and Novel Enteric Viruses in Fecal Viromes of Healthy Wild and Captive Thai Cynomolgus Macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Abstract

Cynomolgus macaques are common across South East Asian countries including Thailand. The National Primate Research Center of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University (NPRCT-CU) captures wild-borne cynomolgus macaque for research use. Limited information is available on the enteric viruses and possible zoonotic infections into or from cynomolgus macaques. We characterized and compare the fecal virome of two populations; healthy wild-originated captive cynomolgus macaques (n = 43) reared in NPRCT-CU and healthy wild cynomolgus macaques (n = 35). Over 90% of recognized viral sequence reads amplified from feces were from bacterial viruses. Viruses from seven families of mammalian viruses were also detected (Parvoviridae, Anelloviridae, Picornaviridae, Adenoviridae, Papillomaviridae, Herpesviridae, and Caliciviridae). The genomes of a member of a new picornavirus genus we named Mafapivirus, a primate chapparvovirus, and a circular Rep-encoding single-strand (CRESS) DNA virus were also characterized. Higher abundance of CRESS DNA viruses of unknown tropism and invertebrate-tropic ambidensovirus were detected in wild versus captive macaques likely reflecting dietary differences. Short term rearing in captivity did not have a pronounced effect on the diversity of mammalian viruses of wild cynomolgus macaques. This study is the first report of the fecal virome of cynomolgus macaques, non-human primates frequently used in biomedical research and vaccination studies.

Murine and related chapparvoviruses are nephro-tropic and produce novel accessory proteins in infected kidneys

“…Therefore, p15 could also be produced from transcripts 1, 2a or 2b. In addition, these transcripts potentially encode NP, a hypothetical ORF in Type 2 ChPV, but sometimes lacking a conventional start ATG codon in Type 1 ChPV [16,18]. Transcript 3 encodes a twoexon variant of NP that we previously dubbed NS2 [9]; however, we have not detected any peptides by LC-MS/MS that confirm production of NS2 or NP in vivo.…”

“…This indicates that the liver may act as an MKPV/MuCPV sink or filter during viremia [31], perhaps as a consequence of latent infection, but it is not a site of active MKPV propagation (see Fig 2Biv). The most common source of ChPV sequences to date has been faeces [11][12][13][15][16][17][18]. Our work shows that MKPV-infection of mouse kidneys leads to the presence of MKPV in faeces via shedding in the urine (Fig 2B) and via ingestion [9].…”

“…Interestingly, the other primate ChPV sequences known so far-the simian parvo-like viruses and Mafachaviruses from macaques-cluster with Type 1 porcine ChPVs and not with Type 2 ChPV such as CKPV. Type 1 ChPV nonetheless encode p15 and an NS2-like ORF (this paper and [18,28]; at the time of writing, Mafachavirus sequences were not accessible for inclusion in this paper's analyses). Precise mapping of the major MKPV transcripts has confirmed the splice donor, splice acceptor and polyadenylation sites originally suggested by RNAseq, quantified usage of major and minor splice sites, and has mapped the dominant transcription start sites to a region immediately 3' to the left TR.…”

Plasma virome of 781 Brazilians with unexplained symptoms of arbovirus infection include a novel parvovirus and densovirus

“…cynomologus macaques [43], rats and mice [44,45], bats [46][47][48], pigs [49], Tasmanian devils [50], dogs [51], birds (including turkey [52], red-crowned crane [53], chicken [54] and peafowls [55]) and in fish (tilapia fish [56] and Gulf pipefish [33]) have recently been described. A murine chapparvovirus, initially described in wild New York City mice feces [45], was independently re-discovered and shown to be kidney-tropic and pathogenic to laboratory mice [57].…”

Enteric viruses nucleic acids distribution along the digestive tract of rhesus macaques with idiopathic chronic diarrhea

“…We recently described a number of viruses in feces of captive rhesus macaques with and without ICD 10 as well as in healthy captive and wild cynomolgus macaques 11 . In captive rhesus macaques, numerous picornaviruses and parvoviruses were characterized as well as less prevalent adenovirus and sapelovirus 10 .…”