Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Viral Evolution, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
Mol Biol Evol. 2021 Jun 25;38(7):2818-2830. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msab072.
Viruses closely related to human pathogens can reveal the origins of human infectious diseases. Human herpes simplexvirus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) are hypothesized to have arisen via host-virus codivergence and cross-species transmission. We report the discovery of novel herpes simplexviruses during a large-scale screening of fecal samples from wild gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that, contrary to expectation, simplexviruses from these African apes are all more closely related to HSV-2 than to HSV-1. Molecular clock-based hypothesis testing suggests the divergence between HSV-1 and the African great ape simplexviruses likely represents a codivergence event between humans and gorillas. The simplexviruses infecting African great apes subsequently experienced multiple cross-species transmission events over the past 3 My, the most recent of which occurred between humans and bonobos around 1 Ma. These findings revise our understanding of the origins of human herpes simplexviruses and suggest that HSV-2 is one of the earliest zoonotic pathogens.
与人类病原体密切相关的病毒可以揭示人类传染病的起源。人类单纯疱疹病毒 1 型 (HSV-1) 和 2 型 (HSV-2) 被认为是通过宿主-病毒共同进化和跨物种传播而产生的。我们在对野生大猩猩、倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩的粪便样本进行大规模筛查时发现了新型单纯疱疹病毒。系统发育分析表明，与预期相反，这些来自非洲猿类的单纯疱疹病毒与 HSV-2 的亲缘关系都比与 HSV-1 的亲缘关系更密切。基于分子钟的假设检验表明，HSV-1 和非洲大猿单纯疱疹病毒之间的分化可能代表了人类和大猩猩之间的共同进化事件。感染非洲大猿的单纯疱疹病毒随后在过去 300 万年中经历了多次跨物种传播事件，最近一次发生在大约 100 万年前的人类和倭黑猩猩之间。这些发现修正了我们对人类单纯疱疹病毒起源的理解，并表明 HSV-2 是最早的人畜共患病原体之一。
