title: The evolution and emergence of hantaviruses.
abstract: Hantaviruses are a major class of zoonotic pathogens and cause a variety of severe diseases in humans. For most of the last 50 years rodents have been considered to be the primary hosts of hantaviruses, with hantavirus evolution thought to reflect a process of virus-rodent co-divergence over a time-scale of millions of years, with occasional spill-over into humans. However, recent discoveries have revealed that hantaviruses infect a more diverse range of mammalian hosts, particularly Chiroptera (bats) and Soricomorpha (moles and shrews), and that cross-species transmission at multiple scales has played an important role in hantavirus evolution. As a consequence, the evolution and emergence of hantaviruses is more complex than previously anticipated, and may serve as a realistic model for other viral groups.
authors.affiliation: Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, Charles Perkins Centre, School of Biological Sciences and Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Department of Zoonoses, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Changping, Beijing, China. Electronic address: edward.holmes@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Edward C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Department of Zoonoses, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Changping, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yong-Zhen
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000821:virology; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D004197:Disease Reservoirs; D006476:Orthohantavirus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D018778:Hantavirus Infections / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D058507:Host Specificity; D006801:Humans; D008971:Moles / Q000821:virology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012377:Rodentia / Q000821:virology; D012788:Shrews / Q000821:virology; D015047:Zoonoses