Title
Phylogenomic evidence for recombination of adenoviruses in wild gorillas
Author(s)
Hoppe, E.;Pauly, M.;Robbins, M.;Gray, M.;Kujirakwinja, D.;Nishuli, R.;Mungu-Akonkwa, D.B.;Leendertz, F.H.;Ehlers, B.
Published
2015
Publisher
Journal of General Virology
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000250
Abstract
Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) of species Human mastadenovirus B (HAdV-B) are genetically highly diverse and comprise several pathogenic types. AdVs closely related to members of HAdV-B infect African great apes and the evolutionary origin of HAdV-B has recently been determined in ancient gorillas. Genetic evidence for intra- and inter-species recombination has been obtained for AdVs of humans and captive great apes, but evidence from wild great apes is lacking. In this study, potential HAdV-B members of wild Eastern gorillas were analyzed for evidence of recombination. One near-complete genome was amplified from primary sample material and sequenced, and from another 6 individuals genome fragments were obtained. In phylogenomic analysis, their penton base, pVII-pVI, hexon and fiber genes were compared to those of all publicly available HAdV-B full genome sequences of humans and captive great apes. Evidence for intra-species recombination between different HAdV-B members of wild gorillas as well as between HAdV-B members of chimpanzees and gorillas was obtained. Since zoonotic AdVs have been reported to cause respiratory outbreaks both in humans and monkeys, and humans in West and Central Africa frequently hunt and butcher primates thereby increasing the chance of zoonotic transmission, such HAdV-B recombinants might widen the pool of potential human pathogens.

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PUB15536