Introduction
Lassa fever (LF) is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease caused by Lassa virus (LASV) [
1], with a case fatality rate of approximately 30% in hospitals in Nigeria [
2]. LF is widespread in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria and the Mano River Union (MRU), which includes Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In the past two decades, cases have also been reported in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Togo [
3]. LASV is a single- stranded RNA virus with the genome consisting of two segments, the large (L) segment encoding RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (LP) and zinc-binding protein (ZP), and the small (S) segment encoding the glycoprotein precursor (GPC) and nucleoprotein (NP) [
4]. LASV belongs to the genus
Mammarenavirus and the family
Arenaviridae, with its reservoir is a rodent of the genus
Mastomy known as “multimammate rat”. And LASV is transmitted to humans mainly through food or household items contaminated by infected rats’ urine and faeces.
Early studies identified at least seven lineages: lineages I to III were circulating in Nigeria, while lineage IV was found in MRU [
5]. The strains isolated from Mali and Côte d'Ivoire were proposed as lineage V [
6]. The new strain (
Hylomycus pamfi) isolated from Nigeria, as well as the strains from nosocomial outbreaks in Togo and Benin, may be considered lineages VI and VII [
7‐
9]. Subsequent studies further refined the sub-lineages within each lineage [
10,
11]. While the origin of LASV had been reported [
12], comprehensive information regarding its spread in West Africa and the phylodynamic characteristics is still limited.
Different strains could exchange genetic information through intergenic reassortment and recombination, leading to the generation of new genotypes and phenotypes, thereby driving viral evolution [
13]. LASV belongs to the
Arenaviridae family, where reassortment and recombination events had been detected, indicating their role in the evolutionary process within this viral family [
14,
15]. Although some studies had mentioned the reassortment strains of LASV [
11,
12], a global description of recombination events was lacking.
As the sole antigen on the viral surface, GPC was commonly used as an immunogen in vaccine development. The GPC virion forms a trimer, consisting of the receptor-binding subunit GP1 and the transmembrane fusion-mediating subunit GP2. It also contains a stable signal peptide (SSP), which remains as part of the complex in the virus particles. Additionally, GPC contained 11 N-glycosylation motifs, which combine with nearby amino acids to form glycans that affect the immune response [
16]. While the study mentioned the variation range of GPC among lineages [
17], the specific substitutions were not described in detail.
Based on the above information, we comprehensively reconstructed the spatio-temporal and phylodynamics of LASV in West Africa using as many sequences as possible from public databases, and detected possible reassortment and recombination events in sequences. Finally, we compared the variations of GPC among lineages to gain a global understanding of LASV.
Discussion
Spatial temporal dynamics analysis showed LASV had two transmission routes in West Africa, and the reasons for these seem to be influenced by natural reservoir spillovers and certain human activities. The natural host of LASV was mainly the
Mastomys natalensis, which was semi-commensal habit with humans and had the characteristic of seasonal reproduction. A previous study showed that
Mastomys natalensis reached its breeding peak at the end of the rainy season in West Africa [
42]. When the rodent density increased, the ratio of their activity frequency to the crowd concentration area in the dry season also increased accordingly. This seasonal activity increased the probability of human infection, causing concentrated outbreaks of LASV in the dry season [
2]. Moreover, the Triangular Trade route in the sixteenth century approximated the special and temporal traits of transmission route 2 and the armed conflicts in recent years also played an important role in the spatial distribution of LASV [
43]. These human activities facilitated the incidental transport of rodents over geographical barriers, which may have been one of the reasons for the widespread spread of LASV in West Africa. Michael R once proposed that Liberia was the entry point of LASV into the MRU [
11]. In route 2, the outbreak of the epidemic in West African countries was more closely linked to Liberia. Nigeria, as the source epicentre of LASV, spread the virus outward to Liberia, and then independently spread from Liberia to surrounding countries, resulting in a wider spread of LASV in West Africa. This implied Liberia may be a secondary epicentre for the outbreak of LASV on the West Africa.
Not all the family of
Arenaviridae contained a bi-segmented genome, and recently, the new virus with tri-segmented genomes had been detected [
44], indicating the generation of new segments may have been through long-term evolution [
45]. This may also be one of the reasons for the inconsistent root TMRCA of the two segments of LASV. From 1969 to 2018, several heavy rainfall events occurred in West Africa, especially in Nigeria in 1988. The increase in rainfall affected the host's habits [
43], thereby affecting the spread of LASV. The increase in genetic diversity during this period may be related to the cumulative effect of rainfall [
46]. The virus lacking ZP was found in family of
Arenaviridae, indicating that arenaviruses may have evolved a new mechanism that could replace ZP [
44]. The high evolution rate of ZP in LASV suggested that LASV may also be undergoing similar evolution. And other study had shown that the high evolution rate may be related to its short length [
47]. Thus, when considering ZP as a drug target [
48], it was necessary to consider the potential risks.
Two reported strains [
12] indicated that there had been reassorted within the sub-lineage IIg of LASV, and more reassortment signals further suggested that reassortment had been still ongoing. In the whole genome sequences obtained in Côte d'Ivoire, four potential reassortment strains were identified. Further investigations revealed that the occurrence of reassortment signal of LASV_3625 may be attributed to recombination events within L segment. For the L segment, four strains isolated from Côte d'Ivoire also showed significant recombination signals. The major and minor parents of these strains come from the lineage IV and V, respectively, indicating that these strains were produced by of recombination of two lineages. The strains of the Côte d'Ivoire branch were highly likely to be affected by recombination, thereby exacerbating the expansion of lineage V.
The diversity of LASV could be reflected through GPC, which served as a surface antigen and often was used as a candidate immunogen in vaccine development [
35]. Multiple residues substitutions also emerged in GPC. At E178, each lineage contained at least two mutated amino acids, and the continuous substitutions of amino acids was likely related to their positive selection or high Shannon entropy of GPC [
49]. Analysis of known epitopes showed that they were also undergoing amino acid substitutions. These changes in E2 and E4 sequences were mainly concentrated in lineages V to VII, while they were relatively conserved in the I-IV lineages. This special variation among lineages may be beneficial for them as candidate epitopes for specific vaccines in lineages I to IV.
Conclusions
The results of this study investigated the temporal and spatial dynamics of LASV transmission in West Africa and its associated factors. We have highlighted the crucial role of Liberia as a secondary epicenter and estimated relevant evolutionary features such as TMRCA, effective population size, and evolution rate. Relevant results suggested that multiple lineages contained reassortment events, especially the sub-lineage IIg, while recombination played a role in expanding lineage V. Notably, significant amino acid variations in GPC demonstrated the sequences diversity of LASV, and this diversity change may affect the normal expression of epitopes.
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