Tissue Tropisms of Avian Influenza A Viruses Affect Their Spillovers from Wild Birds to Pigs

Authors

Xiaojian Zhang, University of Missouri, ColumbiaFollow
Fred L. Cunningham, USDA NWRC, Starkville, MSFollow
Lei Li, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
Katie Hanson-Dorr, USDA NWRC, Starkville, MS
Liyuan Liu, Mississippi State University
Kaitlyn Waters, University of Missouri, Columbia
Minhui Guan, University of Missouri, ColumbiaFollow
Alicia K. Olivier, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
Brandon S. Schmit, USDA-APHIS NWRCFollow
Jacqueline M. Nolting, The Ohio State UniversityFollow
Andrew S. Bowman, The Ohio State UniversityFollow
Mia Kim Torchetti, USDA, Ames, IAFollow
Thomas J. DeLiberto, USDA-APHIS NWRCFollow
Xiu-Feng Wan, University of Missouri, ColumbiaFollow

ORCID IDs

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2629-9234 Xiu-Feng Wan

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0738-8453 Andrew S. Bowman

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2020

Citation

Zhang, X., F.L. Cunningham, L. Li, K. Hanson-Dorr, L. Liu, K. Waters, M. Guan, A.K. Olivier, B.S. Schmit, J.M. Nolting, A.S. Bowman, M.K. Torchetti, T.J. DeLiberto, and X.-F. Wan. 2020. Tissue tropisms of avian influenza 1 A viruses affect their spillovers from wild birds to pigs. Journal of Virology 94(24):e00847-20.

doi: 10.1128/JVI.00847-20

Comments

US gov't

Abstract

Wild aquatic birds maintain a large, genetically diverse pool of influenza A viruses (IAVs), which can be transmitted to lower mammals and, ultimately, humans. Through phenotypic analyses of viral replication efficiency, only a small set of avian IAVs were found to replicate well in epithelial cells of the swine upper respiratory tract, and these viruses were shown to infect and cause virus shedding in pigs. Such a phenotypic trait of the viral replication efficiency appears to emerge randomly and is distributed among IAVs across multiple avian species and geographic and temporal orders. It is not determined by receptor binding preference but is determined by other markers across genomic segments, such as those in the ribonucleoprotein complex. This study demonstrates that phenotypic variants of viral replication efficiency exist among avian IAVs but that only a few of these may result in viral shedding in pigs upon infection, providing opportunities for these viruses to become adapted to pigs, thus posing a higher potential risk for creating novel variants or detrimental reassortants within pig populations.