Aim Phlebotominae sandflies are primary vectors of phleboviruses, causing the sandfly fever disease. The aim of this study was to detect and report the presence of flaviviruses in Phlebotominae sandflies captured in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Methods After a microscopic and morphometric analysis, the final identification of collected Phlebotomus specimens was confirmed by PCR, using a hemi-nested polymerase chain reaction on extracted and reversely transcribed RNA. Results We obtained a 155 nt long fragment of the viral non-structural protein 5 (NS5) gene (GenBank accession no. MN090154). The acquired nucleotide sequence, provisionally named as Drežnica, showed a maximum of 70-80% identity in 70-88% (110-137 nucleotides) of the query coverage with several Anopheles, Sabethes, Calbertado and Culex flaviviruses. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis showed that the new flavivirus Drežnica clusters together with the flavivirus isolated from Culiseta annulata mosquitos. Conclusion We report the presence of flavivirus in Phlebotominae sandflies, captured in Drežnica, Herzegovina for the first time. The next phase of research will be directed towards virus cultivation, obtaining a longer or complete virus sequence and clarifying the medical and epidemiological importance of the Drežnica virus.
Karabatsos N. International catalogue of arboviruses: including certain other viruses of vertebrates. 3rd ed. San Antonio, Tex: Published for the Subcommittee on Information Exchange of the American Committee on Arthropod-borne Viruses by the. American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene; 1985.
2.
Weaver S, Reisen W. Present and future arboviral threats. Antiviral Res. 2010. p. 328–45.
3.
Dash A, Bhatia R, Sunyoto T, Mourya D. Emerging and re-emerging arboviral diseases in Southeast Asia. J Vector Borne Dis. 2013. p. 77.
4.
Go Y, Balasuriya U, Lee C. Zoonotic encephalitides caused by arboviruses: transmission and epidemiology of alphaviruses and flaviviruses. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2014. p. 58–77.
5.
Competition for financing / co-financing scientific / scientific-research and research-development projects in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2017.
6.
Blitvich B. Arboviruses: Molecular Biology, Evolution and Control. Nikos Vasilakis and Duane J. Gubler. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2016. p. 488–9.
7.
Alatoom A, Payne D. An overview of arboviruses and bunyaviruses. Lab Med. 2009. p. 237–40.
8.
Hollidge B, González-Scarano F, Soldan S. Arboviral encephalitides: transmission, emergence, and pathogenesis. J Neuroimmune Pharmacol. 2010. p. 428–42.
9.
Chastel C. Asymptomatic infections in man: A Trojan horse for the introduction and spread of mosquito-borne arboviruses in non-endemic areas? Bull Soc Pathol Exot. 1990. p. 213–9.
10.
Olivia W, Obanda L, Bucht V, Mosomtai G, Otieno G, Ahlm V, et al. Global emergence of Alphaviruses that cause arthritis in humans. Infect Ecol Epidemiol. 2015. p. 29853.
11.
Guler S, Guler E, Caglayik D, Kokoglu O, Ucmak H, Bayrakdar F, et al. A sandfly fever virus outbreak in the East Mediterranean region of Turkey. Int J Infect Dis. 2012. p. 244–6.
12.
Sabin A, Philip C, Paul J. Phlebotomus (Pappataci or Sandfly) fever: a disease of military importance summary of existing knowledge and preliminary report of original investigations. J Am Med Assoc. 1944. p. 693–9.
13.
Tufan Z, Weidmann M, Bulut C, Kinikli S, Hufert F, Dobler G, et al. Clinical and laboratory findings of a sandfly fever Turkey Virus outbreak in Ankara. J Infect. 2011. p. 375–81.
14.
Palacios G, Tesh R, Savji N, Da Rosa A, Guzman H, Bussetti A, et al. Characterization of the Sandfly fever Naples species complex and description of a new Karimabad species complex (genus Phlebovirus, family Bunyaviridae). J. Gen. Virol. 2014. p. 292.
15.
Kocak Tufan Z, Tasyaran M, Sandfly G, Fever. A Mini Review. Virol Mycol. 2013. p. 2161–0517.
16.
Ozbel Y. The infections transmitted by sand flies in Turkey. Vet Fak Derg. 2013. p. 225–8.
17.
Nicoletti L, Ciufolini M, Verani P. Imported Virus Infections. Springer; 1996. p. 41–7.
18.
Nicoletti L, Verani P, Caciolli S, Ciufolini M, Renzi A, Bartolozzi D, et al. Central nervous system involvement during infection by Phlebovirus toscana of residents in natural foci in central Italy (1977-1988). Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1991. p. 429–34.
19.
Dionisio D, Valassina M, Ciufolini M, Vivarelli A, Esperti F, Cusi M, et al. Encephalitis without meningitis due to sandfly fever virus serotype Toscana. Clin Infect Dis. 2001. p. 1241–3.
20.
Hukić M, Saumović-Bešić I. Sandfly-Pappataci fever in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the new-old disease. Bosn J Basic Med Sci. 2009. p. 39.
21.
Cusi M, Savellini G, Zanelli G. Toscana virus epidemiology: from Italy to beyond. Open Virol J. 2010. p. 22.
22.
Özkale Y, Özkale M, Kiper P, Cetinkaya B, Erol I. Sadfly fever: two case reports. Turk Pediatri Ars. 2016. p. 110.
23.
Moureau G, Ninove L, Izri A, Cook S, Lamballerie X, Charrel R. Flavivirus RNA in phlebotomine sandflies. Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. 2010. p. 195–7.
24.
Genbank. 15AD.
25.
Pick A. Zur Pathologie und Therapie einer eigenthümlichen endemischen Krankheitsform. Wien Med Wochenschr. 1886. p. 1141–5.
26.
Terzin A, Matuka S, Fornazaric M, Hlaca D. Antibodies against some Arbor-Viruses and against the Bedsonia Antigen in Sera of Men, Sheep and Cattle in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Acta Med Iugosl. 1962. p. 301–17.
27.
Vesenjak-Hirjan J, Porterfield J, Arslanagić E. Arboviruses in the Mediterranean countries. Stuttgart. Gustav Fischer Verlag; 1980.
28.
Ayhan N, Alten B, Ivovic V, Dvořák V, Martinkovic F, Omeragic J, et al. Direct evidence for an expanded circulation area of the recently identified Balkan virus (Sandfly fever Naples virus species) in several countries of the Balkan archipelago. Parasit Vectors. 2017. p. 402.
29.
Ayhan N, Velo E, De Lamballerie X, Kota M, Kadriaj P, Ozbel Y, et al. Detection of Leishmania infantum and a novel phlebovirus (Balkan Virus) from sand flies in Albania. Dis. 2016. p. 802–6.
30.
Sánchez-Secso M, Echevarría J, Hernández L, Estévez D, Navarro-Marí J, Tenorio A. Detection and identification of Toscana and other phleboviruses by RT-nested-PCR assays with degenerated primers. J. Med. Virol. 2003. p. 140–9.
31.
Scaramozzino N, Crance J, Jouan A, Debriel D, Stoll F, Garin D. Comparison of flavivirus universal primer pairs and development of a rapid, highly sensitive heminested reverse transcription-PCR assay for detection of flaviviruses targeted to a conserved region of the NS5 gene sequences. J Clin Microbiol. 2001. p. 1922–7.
32.
Hall T, Biosciences I, Carlsbad C. BioEdit: an important software for molecular biology. GERF Bull Biosci. 2011. p. 60–1.
33.
Altschul S, Madden T, Schäffer A, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, et al. Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 1997. p. 3389–402.
34.
Kumar S, Stecher G, Li M, Knyaz C, Tamura K. MEGA X: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis across computing platforms. Mol Biol Evol. 2018. p. 1547–9.
35.
Tamura K, Nei M. Estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of mitochondrial DNA in humans and chimpanzees. Mol Biol Evol. 1993. p. 512–26.
36.
Tamura K, Nei M, Kumar S. Prospects for inferring very large phylogenies by using the neighbor-joining method. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2004. p. 11030–5.
37.
Genbank. 15AD.
38.
Alkan C, Zapata S, Bichaud L, Moureau G, Lemey P, Firth A, et al. Ecuador Paraiso Escondido virus, a new flavivirus isolated from New World sand flies in Ecuador, is the first representative of a novel clade in the genus Flavivirus. J Virol. 2015. p. 11773–85.
39.
Tesh R, Saidi S, Javadian E, Loh P, Nadim A. Isfahan virus, a new vesiculovirus infecting humans, gerbils, and sandflies in Iran. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1977. p. 299–306.
40.
Tesh R, Modi G. Growth and transovarial transmission of Chandipura virus (Rhabdoviridae: Vesiculovirus) in Phlebotomus papatasi. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1983. p. 621–3.
41.
Vasilakis N, Widen S, Mayer S, Seymour R, Wood T, Popov V, et al. Niakha virus: a novel member of the family Rhabdoviridae isolated from phlebotomine sandflies in Senegal. Virology. 2013. p. 80–9.
The statements, opinions and data contained in the journal are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s). We stay neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
,
