Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2019 Jun 4;14(6):e0217494. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217494. eCollection 2019.
Emerging viral diseases, most of which are zoonotic, pose a significant threat to global health. There is a critical need to identify potential new viral pathogens and the challenge is to identify the reservoirs from which these viruses might emerge. Deep sequencing of invertebrate transcriptomes has revealed a plethora of viruses, many of which represent novel lineages representing both plant and animal viruses and little is known about the potential threat that these viruses pose.
Providence virus, an insect virus, was used to establish a productive infection in Vigna unguiculata (cowpea) plants. Providence virus particles purified from these cowpea plants were used to infect two mammalian cell lines.
Here, we present evidence that Providence virus, a non-enveloped insect RNA virus, isolated from a lepidopteran midgut cell line can establish a productive infection in plants as well as in animal cells. The observation that Providence virus can readily infect both plants and mammalian cell culture lines demonstrates the ability of an insect RNA virus to establish productive infections across two kingdoms, in plants and invertebrate and vertebrate animal cell lines.
The study highlights the potential of phytophagous insects as reservoirs for viral re-assortment and that plants should be considered as reservoirs for emerging viruses that may be potentially pathogenic to humans.
新兴的病毒性疾病，大多数为动物源性病原体，对全球健康构成了重大威胁。因此急需鉴定可能的新病毒病原体，而挑战在于识别这些病毒可能出现的储存库。对无脊椎动物转录组进行深度测序揭示了大量病毒，其中许多代表新的谱系，包括植物病毒和动物病毒，但人们对这些病毒可能构成的潜在威胁知之甚少。
Providence 病毒是一种昆虫病毒，被用于在豇豆植物中建立有效的感染。从这些豇豆植物中纯化的 Providence 病毒颗粒被用于感染两种哺乳动物细胞系。
在这里，我们提供了证据表明，Providence 病毒，一种从鳞翅目昆虫中分离出来的非包膜昆虫 RNA 病毒，可以在植物和动物细胞中建立有效的感染。Providence 病毒能够轻易地感染植物和哺乳动物细胞培养系，这表明昆虫 RNA 病毒具有在植物和无脊椎动物及脊椎动物细胞系中建立有效感染的能力。
该研究强调了植食性昆虫作为病毒重配的储存库的潜力，并且应该将植物视为可能对人类具有潜在致病性的新兴病毒的储存库。
