Tick-borne Wuhan mivirus and Lihan tick virus in Rhipicephalus microplus in Guizhou Province China

Abstract

Objective: To uncover the characteristics of tick-borne viruses in Guizhou Province.

Methods: A total of 414 Rhipicephalus microplus were collected from 5 counties in Guizhou Province, China from August 2022 to October 2023. A group of 12 ticks from each study sites was sequenced by next generation sequencing.

Results: 8 contigs of Wuhan mivirus (Chuviridae, Mivirus) with the length of 2094 bp to 11 580 bp and 4 contigs of Lihan tick virus (Phenuiviridae, Uukuvirus) with the length of 1 401 bp to 7 080 bp were obtained, respectively. The prevalence rate of Wuhan mivirus and Lihan tick virus was 51.98% and 11.30%, respectively. The identities of gene sequences of both Wuhan mivirus and Lihan tick virus were 94%-100% compared with sequences in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that the Wuhan mivirus detected in this study was in the same branch with the Wuhan mivirus of Sichuan isolate TIGMIC-27 (NCBI Accession: OP628598) and Zhejiang isolate TIGMIC-45 (NCBI Accession: OP628613). In addition, the Lihan tick virus was in the same branch with the Sichuan Lihan tick virus isolate TIGMIC-46 (NCBI Accession: ON812358).

Conclusions: Both Wuhan mivirus and Lihan tick virus were prevalent in Rhipicephalus microplus in Guizhou Province. More studies are needed to understand the pathogenicity and public health threats of these tick-borne viruses.

Keywords

Tick-borne virus / Wuhan mivirus / Lihan tick virus / Rhipicephalus microplus / Metagenomics / Guizhou Province

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Funding

This research was financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82160633 and 81760605), the GZPH-NSFC-2021-17, the Guizhou Provincial Basic Research Program (Natural Science MS [2025] (No.497); the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity of China (Grant No. SKLPBS2442); and the High-level and Innovative Talents of Guizhou Province (QKH-GCC [2022] 033-1).

Authors’ contributions

TJX conceptualized the study, designed the methodology, and wrote the original draft. CQ and MJ performed formal analysis and software-related work. WSC and ZCM were responsible for data curation and investigation. DYS and CXX conducted investigation tasks. JJF contributed to the conceptualization of the study. SY and CWC participated in writing the review and editing process, and supervised the project. YFX, WJH, and ZL acquired the funding for the research.

Availability of data and materials

The data presented in the study are deposited in the NCBI repository, accession numbers PQ198481, PQ198483, PQ198485, PQ223756, PQ195628, PQ236511, PQ236512, PQ23513, PQ195629, and PQ236510.

Publisher’s note

The Publisher of the Journal remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Edited by Zhang Q, Lei Y, Pan Y

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