Novel RNA viruses associated with avian haemosporidian parasites

Avian haemosporidian parasites can cause malaria-like symptoms in their hosts and have been implicated in the demise of some bird species. The newly described Matryoshka RNA viruses (MaRNAV1 and MaRNAV2) infect haemosporidian parasites that in turn infect their vertebrate hosts. MaRNAV2 was the first RNA virus discovered associated with parasites of the genus Leucocytozoon. By analyzing metatranscriptomes from the NCBI SRA database with local sequence alignment tools, we detected two novel RNA viruses; we describe them as MaRNAV3 associated with Leucocytozoon and MaRNAV4 associated with Parahaemoproteus. MaRNAV3 had similar to 59% amino acid identity to the RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase (RdRp) of MaRNAV1 and similar to 63% amino acid identity to MaRNAV2. MaRNAV4 had similar to 44% amino acid identity to MaRNAV1 and similar to 47% amino acid identity to MaRNAV2. These findings lead us to hypothesize that MaRNAV_like viruses are widespread and tightly associated with the order Haemosporida since they have been described in human Plasmodium vivax, and now two genera of avian haemosporidians.

Automated summary

Avian haemosporidian parasites can cause malaria-like symptoms and threaten bird species, and recently, new RNA viruses associated with these parasites have been discovered. Analysis of transcriptome data revealed the presence of two novel RNA viruses associated with different genera of avian haemosporidians.