Analyses of Leishmania-LRV Co-Phylogenetic Patterns and Evolutionary Variability of Viral Proteins.

ABSTRACT: Leishmania spp. are important pathogens causing a vector-borne disease with a broad range of clinical manifestations from self-healing ulcers to the life-threatening visceral forms. Presence of Leishmania RNA virus (LRV) confers survival advantage to these parasites by suppressing anti-leishmanial immunity in the vertebrate host. The two viral species, LRV1 and LRV2 infect species of the subgenera Viannia and Leishmania, respectively. In this work we investigated co-phylogenetic patterns of leishmaniae and their viruses on a small scale (LRV2 in L. major) and demonstrated their predominant coevolution, occasionally broken by intraspecific host switches. Our analysis of the two viral genes, encoding the capsid and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP), revealed the

SUBMITTER: Kostygov AY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8624691 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature