Abstract
Enteroviruses, members of the Picornaviridae family, are ubiquitous viruses responsible for mild to severe infections in human populations around the world. In 2010 Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo recorded an outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in the humans, caused by wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). One month later, in the Tchimpounga sanctuary near Pointe-Noire, a chimpanzee developed signs similar to AFP, with paralysis of the lower limbs. In the present work, we sought to identify the pathogen, including viral and bacterial agents, responsible for this illness. In order to identify the causative agent, we evaluated a fecal specimen by PCR and sequencing. A Human enterovirus C, specifically of the EV-C99 type was potentially responsible for the illness in this chimpanzee. To rule out other possible causative agents, we also investigated the bacteriome and the virome using next generation sequencing. The majority of bacterial reads obtained belonged to commensal bacteria (95%), and the mammalian virus reads matched mainly with viruses of the Picornaviridae family (99%), in which enteroviruses were the most abundant (99.6%). This study thus reports the first identification of a chimpanzee presenting AFP most likely caused by an enterovirus and demonstrates once again the cross-species transmission of a human pathogen to an ape.
Publication types
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
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Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
MeSH terms
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Animals
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Congo
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Disease Outbreaks
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Enterovirus C, Human / isolation & purification
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Enterovirus C, Human / pathogenicity*
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Enterovirus Infections / epidemiology
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Enterovirus Infections / microbiology
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Enterovirus Infections / virology*
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Feces / microbiology
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Feces / virology
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High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
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Humans
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Pan troglodytes / microbiology
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Pan troglodytes / virology*
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Paralysis / epidemiology
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Paralysis / microbiology
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Paralysis / virology*
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Poliovirus / isolation & purification
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Poliovirus / pathogenicity
Grants and funding
This work was supported by the Gabonese Government, Total Gabon and the ‘Institut National d’Ecologie et d’Evolution’ of CNRS (France). The work was also supported by a fellowship BSTD of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), France, as well as the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. Metabiota, Inc. provided support in the form of salaries for authors BSS and JNF, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.