Similarly, Landjia hapavirus (LJAV), isolated from Riparia paludicola in the Central African Republic in 1970, is the unique representative of bird-related viruses among the Hapavirus genus. This virus is the only bird-related rhabdovirus within the Tupavirus genus. Most of them were identified in different bird species in Africa, with the exception of Durham virus (DURV), which was isolated from Fulica americana in North America in 2005. Until now, 12 bird-related viruses were encompassed within the family Rhabdoviridae, in three different genera, namely Tupavirus, Hapavirus, and Sunrhavirus. As the development of molecular and sequencing techniques have become more and more efficient and available, genotyping is now considered to be a key element in viral taxonomy. Similarly, the previously uncharacterized Duvenhage lyssavirus (DUVV), Lagos bat lyssavirus (LBV), Mokola lyssavirus (MOKV), European bat lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1), and European bat lyssavirus 2 (EBLV-2) were initially classified into rabies-related viruses by serological test before being considered as individual species among the genus Lyssavirus.
For instance, Tupaia virus (TUPV) and Klamath virus (KLAV) had been related to Vesiculovirus genus, but subsequent molecular analysis definitively classified them into the new and distinct Tupavirus genus. Thus, many unclassified rhabdoviruses had been assigned to certain taxa, according to serological cross-reactivity with some typical members of the same rhabdovirus genus or group. Early taxonomy of these viruses was based on virion morphology and serological cross-reactivity. However, dozens of putative or unclassified new species are waiting to be assigned to potential new genera in the near future.
Some of them have significant public health, livestock, aquaculture, and agricultural impacts. The members of this family exhibit a large ecological diversity, with pathogens infecting various plants or animals, including mammals, such as livestock and humans, insects, fishes, reptiles, and birds.
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The family Rhabdoviridae is the most diverse within the Mononegavirales, with 40 different genera and 246 species according to the latest update by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV:, accessed on 25 September 2021). Each gene and some of the accessory ORFs are flanked by relatively well-conserved transcription initiation (TI) and transcription termination polyadenylation (TTP) sequences. Moreover, various novel and diverse accessory genes or putative open reading frames (ORFs) overlap these genes or are interspersed between them. They are characterized by a bullet or rod shape and contain a single or segmented molecule of linear negative-strand RNA of a size approximately 10−16 kb, which contains the five canonical genes encoding the nucleoprotein (N), the phosphoprotein (P), the matrix protein (M), the glycoprotein (G), and the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L). Rhabdoviruses are enveloped RNA viruses belonging to the order Mononegavirales. Their close relationship with other insect-related sunrhaviruses raise questions about their potential role and impact as arboviruses that affect bird communities. The results of this study shed light on the high diversity of the rhabdoviruses circulating in birds, mainly in Africa.
Genetic comparisons and phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that these seven bird-related rhabdoviruses could be considered as putative new species within the genus Sunrhavirus, where they clustered into a single group (named Clade III), a companion to two other groups that encompass mainly insect-related viruses.
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In addition, different additional open reading frames which code putative proteins of unknown function were identified, with the common presence of the C and the SH proteins, within the P gene and between the M and G genes, respectively. Based on the analysis of their genome sequences obtained by next generation sequencing, we observed a classical genomic structure, with the presence of the five canonical rhabdovirus genes, i.e., nucleoprotein (N), phosphoprotein (P), matrix protein (M), glycoprotein (G), and polymerase (L). In this study, we characterized seven additional and previously unclassified rhabdoviruses, which were isolated from various bird species collected in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. To date, only a few bird-related rhabdoviruses among the genera Sunrhavirus, Hapavirus, and Tupavirus have been described and analyzed at the molecular level. Rhabdoviridae is the most diverse family of the negative, single-stranded RNA viruses, which includes 40 ecologically different genera that infect plants, insects, reptiles, fishes, and mammals, including humans, and birds.