Bayesian Phylogeographic Inference Suggests Japan as the Center for the Origin and Dissemination of Rice Stripe Virus

Kangcheng Wu; Yunyue Yang; Wenwen Zhang; Xiaofeng Jiang; Weijian Zhuang; Fangluan Gao; Zhenguo Du

doi:10.3390/v14112547

Bayesian Phylogeographic Inference Suggests Japan as the Center for the Origin and Dissemination of Rice Stripe Virus

Viruses. 2022 Nov 17;14(11):2547. doi: 10.3390/v14112547.

Authors

Kangcheng Wu^{1

2}, Yunyue Yang^{1

2}, Wenwen Zhang^{1

2}, Xiaofeng Jiang^{1

2}, Weijian Zhuang¹, Fangluan Gao¹, Zhenguo Du^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Fujian Key Laboratory of Plant Virology, Institute of Plant Virology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
² Ministerial and Provincial Joint Innovation Centre for Safety Production of Cross-Strait Crops, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.

Abstract

Rice stripe virus (RSV) is one of the most important viral pathogens of rice in East Asia. The origin and dispersal of RSV remain poorly understood, but an emerging hypothesis suggests that: (i) RSV originates from Yunnan, a southwest province of China; and (ii) some places of eastern China have acted as a center for the international dissemination of RSV. This hypothesis, however, has never been tested rigorously. Using a data set comprising more than 200 time-stamped coat protein gene sequences of RSV from Japan, China and South Korea, we reconstructed the phylogeographic history of RSV with Bayesian phylogeographic inference. Unexpectedly, the results did not support the abovementioned hypothesis. Instead, they suggested that RSV originates from Japan and Japan has been the major center for the dissemination of RSV in the past decades. Based on these data and the temporal dynamics of RSV reported recently by another group, we proposed a new hypothesis to explain the origin and dispersal of RSV. This new hypothesis may be valuable for further studies aiming to clarify the epidemiology of RSV. It may also be useful in designing management strategies against this devastating virus.

Keywords: ancestral location; phylogeography; rice stripe virus; virus dispersal.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bayes Theorem
China
Japan / epidemiology
Oryza*
Tenuivirus* / genetics

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32270181 and 31772103) and an Innovation and Development program from Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University (CXZX2019023S).