Viruses for Landscape-Scale Therapy: Biological Control of Rabbits in Australia

Kerr, Peter J.; Hall, Robyn N.; Strive, Tanja

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-1012-1_1

Cited by 14 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 136 publications

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“…RCV-A1 (GI.4) is a benign enterotropic virus that has circulated in wild and domestic rabbits since at least the 1950s ( Strive, Wright, and Robinson 2009 ; Mahar et al., 2016 ). RHDV1 (GI.1c) and RHDVa-K5 (GI.1a) are pathogenic viruses, both deliberately released as biocontrols ( Kerr, Hall, and Strive 2021 ). RHDVa-Aus (GI.4eP-GI.1a) and RHDV2 (GI.1bP-GI.2) were both exotic incursions, first detected through syndromic surveillance activities in January 2014 and May 2015, respectively ( Hall et al., 2015 ; Mahar et al., 2018a ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

et al. 2021

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The diversity of lagoviruses (Caliciviridae) in Australia has increased considerably in recent years. By the end of 2017, five variants from three viral genotypes were present in populations of Australian rabbits, while prior to 2014 only two variants were known. To understand the evolutionary interactions among these lagovirus variants we monitored their geographical distribution and relative incidence over time in a continental-scale competition study. Within three years of the incursion of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV2, denoted genotype GI.1bP-GI.2 [polymerase genotype]P-[capsid genotype]) into Australia, two novel recombinant lagovirus variants emerged: RHDV2-4e (genotype GI.4eP-GI.2) in New South Wales and RHDV2-4c (genotype GI.4cP-GI.2) in Victoria. Although both novel recombinants contain non-structural genes related to those from benign, rabbit-specific, enterotropic viruses, these variants were recovered from the livers of both rabbits and hares that had died acutely. This suggests that the determinants of host and tissue tropism for lagoviruses are associated with the structural genes, and that tropism is intricately connected with pathogenicity. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that the RHDV2-4c recombinant emerged independently on multiple occasions, with five distinct lineages observed. Both the new RHDV2-4e and 4c recombinant variants replaced the previous dominant parental RHDV2 (genotype GI.1bP-GI.2) in their respective geographical areas, despite sharing an identical or near-identical (i.e. single amino acid change) VP60 major capsid protein with the parental virus. This suggests that the observed replacement by these recombinants was not driven by antigenic variation in VP60, implicating the non-structural genes as key drivers of epidemiological fitness. Molecular clock estimates place the RHDV2-4e recombination event in early to mid-2015, while the five RHDV2-4c recombination events occurred from late 2015 through to early 2017. The emergence of at least six viable recombinant variants within a two-year period highlights the high frequency of these events, detectable only through intensive surveillance, and demonstrates the importance of recombination in lagovirus evolution.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

et al. 2021

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“…RCV-A1 is a benign enterotropic virus that has circulated in wild and domestic rabbits, likely since at least the 1950s [14, 35]. RHDV1 and RHDVa-K5 are pathogenic viruses, both deliberately released [36]. RHDVa-Aus and RHDV2 were both exotic incursions, first detected in January 2014 and May 2015, respectively [32, 37].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

Mahar

Jenckel

Huang

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The diversity of lagoviruses (Caliciviridae) in Australia has increased considerably. By the end of 2017, five variants from three viral genotypes were present in populations of Australian rabbits, while prior to 2014 only two variants were known. To understand the interactions between these lagovirus variants we monitored their geographical distribution and relative incidence over time through a landscape-scale competition study, and from this, revealed potential drivers of epidemiological fitness. Within three years of the arrival of GI.1bP-GI.2 (RHDV2) into Australia, we observed the emergence of two novel recombinant lagovirus variants, GI.4eP-GI.2 (4e-recombinant) in New South Wales and GI.4cP-GI.2 (4c-recombinant) in Victoria. Although both novel recombinants contain the non-structural genes from benign, rabbit-specific, enterotropic viruses, these variants were recovered from the livers of both rabbits and hares that had died acutely. This suggests that determinants of host and tissue tropism for lagoviruses are associated with the structural genes, and that tropism is intricately connected with pathogenicity. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that the 4c-recombinant emerged independently on multiple occasions, with five distinct lineages observed. Both new recombinant variants replaced the previous dominant parental RHDV2 in their respective geographical areas, despite sharing an identical or near-identical (i.e., single amino acid change) major capsid protein with the parental virus. This suggests that epidemiological fitness of these recombinants was not driven by antigenic variation in the capsid, implicating the non-structural genes as key drivers of epidemiological fitness. Molecular clock estimates place the GI4.e recombination event in early to mid-2015, while the five GI.4c recombination events occurred from late 2015 through to early 2017. The emergence of at least six viable recombinant variants within a two-year period highlights an unprecedented frequency of these events, detectable only due to intensive surveillance, and demonstrates the importance of recombination in lagovirus evolution.

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“…The emergence of two viral diseases: myxomatosis and rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD) was the primary cause of the decline [4][5][6][7]. In this context, the European rabbit provides a suitable system to study host-viral pathogen interactions, coevolution, and ecological effects [8][9][10][11]. The European rabbit has been extensively studied as a laboratory model for human diseases in both biomedical and fundamental research [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MSCs are widely utilized in therapy because of their immunomodulatory properties [13], but their potential application in infectious viral diseases is less explored. MSCs are susceptible to infection by a wide variety of RNA and DNA viruses both in vitro and in vivo [8][9][10][11]. Despite their permissiveness to some viruses' entry, some evidence has also emerged that MSCs can mitigate viral infection via the upregulation of antiviral mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of biological features of wild European rabbit mesenchymal stem cells derived from different tissues

Calle¹,

Zamora-Ceballos

Bárcena

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Although the European rabbit is an "endangered" species and a notorious biological model, the analysis and comparative characterization of new tissue sources of rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs) has not been well studied. Here we report for the first time the isolation and characterization of rMSCs derived from an animal belonging to a natural rabbit population within the species native region. New rMSC lines were isolated from different tissues: oral mucosa (rOM-MSC), dermal skin (rDS-MSC), subcutaneous adipose tissue (rSCA-MSC), ovarian adipose tissue (rOA-MSC), oviduct (rO-MSC), and mammary gland (rMGMSC). The six rMSC lines showed plastic adhesion with fibroblast-like morphology and were all shown to be positive for CD44 and CD29 expression (characteristic markers of MSCs), and negative for CD34 or CD45 expression. In terms of pluripotency features, all rMSC lines expressed NANOG, OCT4, and SOX2. Furthermore, all rMSC lines cultured under osteogenic, chondrogenic, and adipogenic conditions showed differentiation capacity. In conclusion, this study describes the isolation and characterization of new rabbit cell lines from different tissue origins, with a clear mesenchymal pattern. We show that rMSC do not exhibit differences in terms of morphological features, expression of the cell surface, and intracellular markers of pluripotency and in vitro differentiation capacities, attributable to their tissue of origin.

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Viruses for Landscape-Scale Therapy: Biological Control of Rabbits in Australia

Cited by 14 publications

References 136 publications

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

Frequent intergenotypic recombination between the non-structural and structural genes is a major driver of epidemiological fitness in caliciviruses

Comparison of biological features of wild European rabbit mesenchymal stem cells derived from different tissues

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