PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Magda Bletsa
AU  - Bram Vrancken
AU  - Sophie Gryseels
AU  - Ine Boonen
AU  - Antonios Fikatas
AU  - Yiqiao Li
AU  - Anne Laudisoit
AU  - Sebastian Lequime
AU  - Josef Bryja
AU  - Rhodes Makundi
AU  - Yonas Meheretu
AU  - Benjamin Dudu Akaibe
AU  - Sylvestre Gambalemoke Mbalitini
AU  - Frederik Van de Perre
AU  - Natalie Van Houtte
AU  - Jana Těšíková
AU  - Elke Wollants
AU  - Marc Van Ranst
AU  - Jan Felix Drexler
AU  - Erik Verheyen
AU  - Herwig Leirs
AU  - Joelle Gouy de Bellocq
AU  - Philippe Lemey
TI  - Unravelling the evolutionary relationships of hepaciviruses within and across rodent hosts
AID  - 10.1101/2020.10.09.332932
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.10.09.332932
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/09/2020.10.09.332932.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/09/2020.10.09.332932.full
AB  - Hepatitis C virus (HCV; genus Hepacivirus) represents a major public health problem, infecting about 3 % of the human population (± 185,000,000 people). Because no plausible animal reservoir carrying closely related hepaciviruses has been identified, the zoonotic origins of HCV still remain elusive. Motivated by recent findings of divergent hepaciviruses in rodents and a plausible African origin of HCV genotypes, we have screened a comprehensive collection of small mammals samples from seven sub-Saharan African countries. Out of 4,303 samples screened, 80 were found positive for the presence of hepaciviruses in 29 different host species. We here report 56 novel genomes that considerably increase the diversity of three divergent rodent hepacivirus lineages, which previously were almost exclusively represented by New World and European hepaciviruses. Further-more, we provide undisputable evidence for hepacivirus co-infections in rodents, which remarkably, we exclusively but repeatedly found in four sampled species of brush-furred mice. We also point at hepacivirus co-infections indirectly in different animal hosts by demonstrating evidence for recombination within specific host lineages. Our study considerably expands the available hepacivirus genomic data and elucidates the relatively deep evolutionary history that these pathogens have in rodents compared to other mammalian hosts. Overall, our results emphasize the importance of rodents as a potential hepacivirus reservoir and as models for investigating HCV infection dynamics.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.