Species-specific and individual differences in Nipah virus replication in porcine and human airway epithelial cells

Abstract

Highly pathogenic Nipah virus (NiV) causes symptomatic infections in pigs and humans. The severity of respiratory symptoms is much more pronounced in pigs than in humans, suggesting species-specific differences of NiV replication in porcine and human airways. Here, we present a comparative study on productive NiV replication in primary airway epithelial cell cultures of the two species. We reveal that NiV growth substantially differs in primary cells between pigs and humans, with a more rapid spread of infection in human airway epithelia. Increased replication, correlated with higher endogenous expression levels of the main NiV entry receptor ephrin-B2, not only significantly differed between airway cells of the two species but also varied between cells from different human donors. To our knowledge, our study provides the first experimental evidence of species-specific and individual differences in NiV receptor expression and replication kinetics in primary airway epithelial cells. It remains to be determined whether and how these differences contribute to the viral host range and pathogenicity.

Evolution of Codon Usage Bias in Henipaviruses Is Governed by Natural Selection and Is Host-Specific

“…The results showed that both HeV and NiV are well adapted to tRNAs pool of humans , but are poorly adapted to pig ’s tRNAs pool. This finding corroborated with an earlier study where NiV showed increased replication in humans as compared to pig primary airway epithelial cell cultures [ 58 ]. Furthermore, the gene-wise translation efficiency of henipaviruses was also calculated.…”

Nipah virus: epidemiology, pathology, immunobiology and advances in diagnosis, vaccine designing and control strategies – a comprehensive review

“…A rapid spread of NiV is seen in human airway epithelia which express high levels of the NiV entry receptor ephrin-B2, and the expression levels vary between cells of different donors (Sauerhering et al. 2016). NiV infection upregulates IFN-λ in human respiratory epithelial cells.…”

Zoonotic and reverse zoonotic transmission of viruses between humans and pigs

“…However, humans developed more severe disease with 40% case fatality rate compared to 1‐5% in pigs [ 40 ]. This difference in disease severity could be linked to higher expression of the receptor ephrin‐B2 on human tracheal and bronchial airway epithelial cells than in pigs, leading to more efficient infection [ 41 ]. NiV‐M did not transmit between humans and viral RNA was isolated from 30% of infected throat swabs [ 42 ]; therefore, it seems unlikely that infected humans posed a risk to pigs.…”