Presence of Segmented Flaviviruses in Wild Rodents, Pennsylvania, USA

• Main Authors: Arvind Kumar, Kurt J. Vandegrift, Himanshu Sharma, Satyapramod Murthy, Laura D. Kramer, Richard Ostfeld, Peter Hudson, Amit Kapoor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2020-08-01
• Series: Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Subjects: arbovirus; Alongshan; deer mice virome; flaviviruses; Jingmen; northeastern United States
• Online Access: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/19-0986_article

Identifying viruses in synanthropic animals is necessary for understanding the origin of many viruses that can infect human hosts and developing strategies to prevent new zoonotic infections. The white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus, is one of the most abundant rodent species in the northeastern United States. We characterized the serum virome of 978 free-ranging P. leucopus mice caught in Pennsylvania. We identified many new viruses from 26 different virus families. Among these viruses was a highly divergent segmented flavivirus whose genetic relatives were recently identified in ticks, mosquitos, and vertebrates, including febrile patients. The novel flavi-like segmented virus, isolated from ticks in Pennsylvania, shares ˂70% aa identity with known viruses in the highly conserved region of the viral polymerase. Our data will enable researchers to develop molecular reagents to further characterize this virus and its relatives infecting other hosts and to curtail their spread, if necessary.