Monkeys in Asia harbor virus from humans, other species

When it comes to spreading viruses, bats are thought to be among the worst. Now a new study of nearly 900 nonhuman primates in Bangladesh and Cambodia shows that macaques harbor more diverse astroviruses, which can cause infectious gastroenteritis or diarrhea in humans.

"If you are a bat, you have bat astrovirus, but if you are a monkey, you could have everything," said Lisa Jones-Engel, a research scientist at the University of Washington National Primate Research Primate Center and a co-author of the study, published in PLOS Pathogens.

This research, the scientists said, is the first to show evidence of human astroviruses in animals, and among the earliest to demonstrate that astroviruses can move between mammalian species.

Astroviruses from a number of species, including human, bovine, bird, cow and dog, were detected in monkeys, This "challenges the paradigm that AstV (astrovirus) infection is species-specific," the authors wrote.

It is still unknown whether these viruses are two-way and can be transmitted to humans. They did find evidence that, in monkeys, two species of astrovirus recombined.

Knowing that nonhuman primates can harbor diverse astroviruses - including novel, recombinant viruses that may be pathogenic and/or more efficiently transmitted - highlights the importance of continued monitoring, the authors said.

This is particularly true in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, where macaques and humans live side-by-side.

"This study is an example of the concept of One Health for new viruses," noted author Stacey Schultz-Cherry at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. "This is an indication that we really need to think about animal partners in One Health."

Astroviruses are most commonly associated with diarrhea. They can also cause clinical diseases such as nephritis, hepatitis and encephalitis. Astroviruses also can be asymptomatic, depending on the species, the researchers reported. Currently, the only treatment is oral rehydration.

In this study of 879 samples of primate feces, 68 (7.7 percent) were positive for astroviruses. The majority of the positive samples (72 percent) were 79-100 percent similar to astroviruses associated with human infections; 23.5 percent of the samples were similar to mammalian astroviruses isolated from diverse animal hosts including dogs, pigs and sheep. Slightly more than 4 percent of the positive samples were associated with avian astroviruses.

The team also collected blood samples, which confirmed that more than 25 percent of the monkeys had been infected with human astroviruses.

Whether the monkeys were getting sick from these viruses is unknown. The researchers said more study is needed to determine if astrovirus infections in nonhuman primates are associated with clinical disease, or whether such infections are asymptomatic. They said none of monkeys sampled in the study appeared to have clinical disease (e.g., diarrhea) at the time of sampling.

The scientists said they are currently working on analyses to model the ecological role that nonhuman primates play in maintaining the diversity of astroviruses, particularly in places where they share the environment with humans and other animals.

Collaborators included the UW, St. Jude's, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, National Veterinary Research Institute in Cambodia, and Washington University in St. Louis.

- SPACE STORY - life slug1 255 23-DEC-49 Shape of bird wings depends on ancestors more than flight style Shape of bird wings depends on ancestors more than flight style samples-dorsal-and-ventral-sides-wings-shapes-lg.jpg samples-dorsal-and-ventral-sides-wings-shapes-bg.jpg samples-dorsal-and-ventral-sides-wings-shapes-sm.jpg Samples of the dorsal (middle column) and ventral (left column) sides of wings from bird specimens analyzed by the researchers. The right column depicts a consensus wing shape generated by analyzing the wing shape of 105 bird taxon (figure f), a figure depicting how various wing shapes differed from the consensus wing (figure g), and the magnitude of variation across different parts of the consensus wing ( figure h). Image courtesy Xia Wang. For a larger version of this image please go here. University of Texas at Austin
by Staff Writers Austin TX (SPX) Nov 10, 2015 In a finding that could change the way scientists think about bird evolution, researchers have found that the shape of bird wings is influenced more by how closely related species are to one another than by flight style.

The research challenges scientific beliefs that assume the way a bird species flies - whether it primarily dives, glides or flaps, for instance - plays the primary role in the evolution of its wing shape. It also indicates that it may be more difficult than previously thought to infer flying behaviors of early birds and the first flying dinosaurs from fossils alone.

Julia Clarke, an associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at The University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences, conducted the work with Xia Wang, a post-doctoral researcher who led the study. Their research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in October.

Bird wings, unlike stiff airplane wings, are flexible and change shape during flight. So, their geometry and wing outline may not tell the whole story of a particular flight style or environment, Clarke said.

"We've taken a lot for granted. Birds are not airplanes," Clarke said.

By comparing geometry across species and clades - groups of organisms that evolved from a common ancestor - the researchers found that birds that are closely related evolutionarily have similar wing structures, even if the birds show very different flight styles. For example, albatrosses, penguins and loons, despite looking very different from one another, all belong to the clade Aequornithes and have a wing shape that is very similar.

The study is the first to analyze wing geometry across all major groups of birds. Researchers analyzed over 100 photographs of wings from different bird species.

In general, the analysis of species from across nine major avian clades showed that wing shape became more varied as different clades diverged from early ancestors, Clarke said. The researchers found an interesting exception to this trend in the wings of Passerines - a clade that includes songbirds. Instead of a wing shape that resembles more closely related relatives, their shape resembles that of Galliformes, a distantly related order that includes birds, such as chickens and turkeys, whose direct ancestors were among the first birds on the planet.

"Those little songbirds share aspects of wing geometry, especially the relative length of the covert feathers, with some of early bird species but have very different body sizes, ecologies and flight styles," Clarke said.

Clarke and Wang also studied covert feathers in these birds. They found that across clades these feathers, which cover the base of the flight feathers, are about the same length whether they are on the top or underside of a wing. The similarity of covert feathers both on a single wing and across clades, brings into question their function, Clarke said.

It's been proposed that some of the upper coverts may play a sensory role, and the lower or underwing coverts, a role in aerodynamics. But the similarity in the distribution and organization of covert feathers on both sides of the wings suggests that such distinct roles may not be the case, Clarke said.

"There's no existing hypothesis to explain that pattern," Clarke said. "So a question now is why the length of these feathers tends to be similar and why they show similar trends across birds. We could be looking for a developmental explanation or a functional one."