Genetic Diversity and Evolution of Viruses Infecting Felis catus: A Global Perspective

Abstract

Cats harbor many important viral pathogens, and the knowledge of their diversity has been greatly expanded thanks to increasingly popular molecular sequencing techniques. While the diversity is mostly described in numerous regionally defined studies, there lacks a global overview of the diversity for the majority of cat viruses, and therefore our understanding of the evolution and epidemiology of these viruses was generally inadequate. In this study, we analyzed 12,377 genetic sequences from 25 cat virus species and conducted comprehensive phylodynamic analyses. It revealed, for the first time, the global diversity for all cat viruses known to date, taking into account highly virulent strains and vaccine strains. From there, we further characterized and compared the geographic expansion patterns, temporal dynamics and recombination frequencies of these viruses. While respiratory pathogens such as feline calicivirus showed some degree of geographical panmixes, the other viral species are more geographically defined. Furthermore, recombination rates were much higher in feline parvovirus, feline coronavirus, feline calicivirus and feline foamy virus than the other feline virus species. Collectively, our findings deepen the understanding of the evolutionary and epidemiological features of cat viruses, which in turn provide important insight into the prevention and control of cat pathogens.

Epidemiology of Pathogenic Retroviruses and Domestic Cat Hepadnavirus in Community and Client-Owned Cats in Hong Kong

“…The influence of different virus strains on regional epidemiology is unknown. A recent global overview of feline virus sequences highlights the potential to consider FIV sequence comparisons between regions as a factor affecting local virus transmission characteristics [ 46 ]. No sequences are yet available for FIV from Hong Kong, so this analysis was not possible here.…”