Bioinformatics analysis for L polymerase homology of arenaviruses

AbstractMany pathogenic viruses can transmit between humans and animals as zoonotic infectious often to cause dangerous disease with obvious clinical signs, sometimes globally. However, these outbreaks are generally only dealt with seriously when the viruses concerned have been confirmed and classified as zoonotic. Arenavirus haemorrhagic fever viruses can cause epidemics in some areas of the world. To assess the potential of similar viruses to become zoonotic in the future, bioinformatics of relatively conserved virus proteins, such as the L polymerase of arenaviruses, can be used to identify homology with viruses that might give future outbreaks. In this paper, new and archival metazoan transcriptome sequence data was used as a resource to identify similar sequences to known arenavirus sequences for the purpose of risk prediction. In essence, bioinformatics was utilized to provide a better understanding of the potential evolution and natural history of uncharacterized virus sequences in the GenBank database. Several matches were identified which, along with a reasoned approach to their phyla, was used to provide a likelihood score of their zoonotic potential.

Bioinformatics analysis for L polymerase homology of arenaviruses Institutional Repository Document