Leading
an international team of Scientists in Nigeria, West
Africa and North America, Professor Christian Happi
of the Department of Biological Sciences and Director
of the World Bank funded African Center of
Excellence for Genomics of infectious Diseases
(ACEGID) at Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State,
Nigeria, has published new findings showing the
ancient roots of the deadly Lassa virus, a relative of
Ebola virus, and how Lassa virus has changed over
time. The new study “Clinical sequencing uncovers
origins and evolution of Lassa virus” was published
on Thursday August 13, 2015 in the prestigious
scientific Journal Cell.


In the new study, Professor Happi’s led team - which
included Professors Pardis Sabeti and Joshua Levin
of Harvard University and the Broad Institute, Robert
F. Garry of Tulane University, as senior authors—
used a technique called next-generation sequencing
to sequence and analyze the genomes of 196 Lassa
virus samples taken from human patients and wild
Mastomys natalensis (rats) in Nigeria and Sierra
Leone. They used Illumina sequencing to assemble
183 LASV genomes from clinical samples collected in
Sierra Leone and Nigeria, together with 2 LASV
genomes from laboratory isolates and 11 LASV
genomes from field samples of its rodent reservoir,
Mastomys natalensis. “This is the largest catalog of
Lassa fever virus sequences ever generated in the
world, and in the history of virology and genomics.”
said Professor Christian Happi, a senior and
corresponding authors of the publication.


The genomic and molecular clocking data showed
that Lassa virus originated from present day Nigeria
about 1,060 years ago. This surprised the team of
researchers, as Lassa fever was first described in
Nigeria in 1969. “Although we were surprised, the
data has led us to the discovery that Lassa fever virus
is a very ancient virus with roots in Nigeria” said
Happi. “These findings also support our previous
demonstration that the Yoruba race of Nigeria has
been under natural selection to evolve resistance to
the virus” added the professor of molecular biology
and genomics, Christian Happi.


The researchers found that the virus spread out of
Nigeria about 400 years ago and over the past couple
of hundred years moved into Guinea (220 years ago),
Liberia (180 years ago) and Sierra Leone (150 years
ago)—the same part of the world where the largest
outbreak of Ebola virus has been raging since 2013.
As Lassa virus spread, the virus mutated and seemed
to better adapt to mammalian hosts.


“This ground breaking research has now given us and
the scientific community a better insight into how the
Lassa virus is evolving. The findings are certainly
very critical for development of new therapies and
vaccines against Lassa fever” said Professor Happi...


Details at http://acegid.org/index.php?active=page&pgcat=view&newscid=22&catid=1