Partial molecular characterisation of New World non-human primate lymphocryptoviruses Anne Lavergne a , Benoît de Thoisy a , Jean-François Pouliquen a , Manuel Ruiz-García b , Vincent Lacoste a,⇑ a Laboratoire des Interactions Virus-Hôtes, Institut Pasteur de la Guyane, 23 avenue Pasteur, BP6010, 97306 Cayenne Cedex, French Guiana b Laboratorio de Genética de Poblaciones – Biología Evolutiva, Unidad de Genética, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cra 7A No 43-82, Bogotá, DC, Colombia article info Article history: Received 20 April 2011 Received in revised form 22 July 2011 Accepted 23 July 2011 Available online 30 July 2011 Keywords: Lymphocryptovirus EBV New World non-human primates Evolution Phylogeny abstract The description of numerous viruses belonging to the Lymphocryptovirus genus from different Old and New World non-human primate species during the past 10 years has led to developing and supporting co-speciational evolution hypotheses for these viruses and their hosts. Among the different primate spe- cies tested, only a few were from the New World. This study attempted to achieve a better understanding of the evolutionary processes within the Platyrrhini branch. Molecular screening of 253 blood DNA sam- ples from 20 New World non-human primate species from Central and South America was carried out using polymerase chain reaction amplification with degenerate consensus primers targeting highly con- served amino acid motifs of the herpesvirus DNA polymerase gene. In addition to the 33 samples from which we have already described three lymphocryptoviruses, amplification products were detected in 17 other samples originating from 11 species (13 sub-species). BLAST searches, pairwise nucleotide and amino acid sequence comparisons, and phylogenetic analyses confirm that they all belong to the Lymphocryptovirus genus. Fourteen distinct Lymphocryptovirus sequences were detected, of which nine have never been reported. Phylogenetic analyses showed that, as expected, the New World virus lineage formed a sister clade to that of the Old World viruses. The parallel determination of the host taxa has demonstrated a good correlation between the distinct monophyletic clades of viruses and the infected primates at the sub-family level. In addition, these results further suggest the existence of two distinct groups within the Cebidae for Saimirinae and Cebinae primates. Nevertheless, based on the current genetic data, this study fell short of achieving a tree that was completely resolved within the lineage of Platyrrhini viruses. Further studies will be needed to better assess the evolutionary relationships between these viruses. Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The evolutionary relationships of members of the Herpesviridae family are being increasingly studied. It is now accepted that the mammalian herpesviruses have a common origin from which they diverged to form the three sub-families currently recognised: Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-herpesvirinae (Minson et al., 2000). The bifurcation between the three sub-families occurred before the radiation of mammals, but the process of diversification that led to the current viruses took place at the same time as the host evolution (McGeoch et al., 1995; Alba et al., 2001). The Gamma- herpesvirinae sub-family is divided into four genera: Lymphocrypto- virus, Macavirus, Percavirus and Rhadinovirus. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the human prototype of Lymphocryptovirus, was discovered in 1964 in cell cultures originating from Burkitt’s lymphoma biop- sies (Epstein et al., 1964). Since the beginning of the 1970s, natural infections by other viruses belonging to the Lymphocryptovirus genus and closely related to EBV have been described in all the non-human primate (NHP) species studied from the Old World (Catarrhini) (Goldman et al., 1968; Stevens et al., 1970; Landon and Malan, 1971; Levy et al., 1971; Naito et al., 1971; Dunkel et al., 1972; Werner et al., 1972; Kalter et al., 1973; Frank et al., 1976). These discoveries were made using an indirect immunoflu- orescence technique on the sera of numerous Catarrhine primate species. The absence of positive serology in New World NHPs (Platyrrhini) led certain authors to suggest that lymphocryptovi- ruses (LCVs) have a host spectrum restricted to humans and Old World NHPs (Frank et al., 1976). This theory was called into question in 2000 by the identification of CalHV3 (Callitrichine herpesvirus 3), a lymphocryptovirus of the marmoset (Ramer et al., 2000). Soon after, Cho et al. characterised from squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) a short stretch of herpesvirus DNA polymerase gene sequence of an uncharacterised LCV that they named SaHV3 1567-1348/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2011.07.017 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +594 594 29 58 17; fax: +594 594 29 31 37. E-mail addresses: alavergne@pasteur-cayenne.fr (A. Lavergne), bdethoisy@pas- teur-cayenne.fr (B. de Thoisy), jfpouliquen@pasteur-cayenne.fr (J.-F. Pouliquen), mruizgar@yahoo.es (M. Ruiz-García), vlacoste@pasteur-cayenne.fr (V. Lacoste). Infection, Genetics and Evolution 11 (2011) 1782–1789 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Infection, Genetics and Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meegid