Genomic Diversity and Evolution of the Lyssaviruses

By: Garrett Hu

Background about Lyssaviruses • Lyssaviruses are RNA viruses that has RNA as its

genetic material that infect mammals and causing rabies-like diseases.

• Example of diseases is rabies.• There are seven types or genotypes of

Lyssaviruses around the world and annually, more than 50,000 people die through Lyssaviruses.

• The seven genotypes of Lyssaviruses are the rabies virus, Lagos bat virus, Mokola virus, Duvenhage virus, European bat lyssavirus type 1 and European bat lyssavirus type 2, and the Australian bat lyssavirus.

Purpose• The purpose of this experiment is to test and

identify the genomic diversity and evolution of the lyssaviruses.

How they test their experiment• They used Tri-Reagent, a reagent for the isolating

the total RNA in each genotypes to differentiate the genotypes apart.

• They also used ExTaq, a PCR enzyme that Proofread to study the genotypes sequence of each genotypes.

• They also test on the phylogenetic analysis of the genomes to find the evolutionary history of the lyssaviruses by comparing the coding alignment.

Why it is important?• The research conclude that the lyssavirus

genotypes have similar structural organization and evolution origin to create more efficient vaccines for each virus.

• The research also increased our knowledge of genome sequence data available for lyssaviruses.

Results• They discovered fourteen new complete genome

sequences in lyssaviruses apart from the original seven genotypes.

• All of the seven known genotypes have the same structural organization that can trace back to their origin.

• Lyssaviruses have the greatest genetic diversity started in Africa and spread with bats with a exception of two genotypes (European bat lyssavirus type 1 and European bat lyssavirus type 2) that started an independent origin in Europe.

For more Information

• http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/transmission/virus.html

• http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/l/lyssavirus/intro.htm

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