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Drivers of MERS-CoV Emergence in Qatar.

ABSTRACT: MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome corona virus) antibodies were detected in camels since 1983, but the first human case was only detected in 2012. This study sought to identify and quantify possible drivers for the MERS-CoV emergence and spillover to humans. A list of potential human, animal and environmental drivers for disease emergence were identified from literature. Trends in possible drivers were analyzed from national and international databases, and through structured interviews with experts in Qatar. The discovery and exploitation of oil and gas led to a 5-fold increase in Qatar GDP coupled with a 7-fold population growth in the past 30 years. The lifestyle gradually transformed from Bedouin life to urban sedentary life, along with a sharp increase in obesity and other comorbidities. Owing to substantial governmental support, camel husbandry and competitions flourished, exacerbating the already rapidly occurring desertification that forced banning of free grazing in 2005. Consequently, camels were housed in compact barns alongside their workers. The transition in husbandry leading to high density camel farming along with increased exposure to humans, combined with the increase of camel movement for the racing and breeding industry, have led to a convergence of factors driving spillover of MERS-CoV from camels to humans.

SUBMITTER: Farag E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6356962 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundPlMERS-CoV is a coronavirus known to cause severe disease in humans, taxonomically classified under the subgenus Merbecovirus. Recent findings showed that the close relatives of MERS-CoV infecting vespertillionid bats (family Vespertillionidae), named NeoCoV and PDF-2180, use their hosts' ACE2 as their entry receptor, unlike the DPP4 receptor usage of MERS-CoV. Previous research suggests that this difference in receptor usage between these related viruses is a result of recombination. However, the precise location of the recombination breakpoints and the details of the recombination event leading to the change of receptor usage remain unclear.MethodsWe used maximum likelihood-based phylogenetics and genetic similarity comparisons to characterise the evolutionary history of all complete Merbecovirus genome sequences. Recombination events were detected by multiple computational methods implemented in the recombination detection program. To verify the influence of recombination, we inferred the phylogenetic relation of the merbecovirus genomes excluding recombinant segments and that of the viruses' receptor binding domains and examined the level of congruency between the phylogenies. Finally, the geographic distribution of the genomes was inspected to identify the possible location where the recombination event occurred.ResultsSimilarity plot analysis and the recombination-partitioned phylogenetic inference showed that MERS-CoV is highly similar to NeoCoV (and PDF-2180) across its whole genome except for the spike-encoding region. This is confirmed to be due to recombination by confidently detecting a recombination event between the proximal ancestor of MERS-CoV and a currently unsampled merbecovirus clade. Notably, the upstream recombination breakpoint was detected in the N-terminal domain and the downstream breakpoint at the S2 subunit of spike, indicating that the acquired recombined fragment includes the receptor-binding domain. A tanglegram comparison further confirmed that the receptor binding domain-encoding region of MERS-CoV was acquired via recombination. Geographic mapping analysis on sampling sites suggests the possibility that the recombination event occurred in Africa.ConclusionTogether, our results suggest that recombination can lead to receptor switching of merbecoviruses during circulation in bats. These results are useful for future epidemiological assessments and surveillance to understand the spillover risk of bat coronaviruses to the human population.

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Drivers of MERS-CoV Emergence in Qatar.

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