Key result
Goose astroviruses exhibit high adaptive pressure to fit the host environment, with higher codon adaptation index values for geese compared to ducks and chickens, and suppression of CpG and UpA motifs.
Why the study?
Goose astroviruses cause fatal infection in goslings, prompting investigation into intrinsic properties linked to their host adaptation and evolution.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Two GoAstV clusters suggest host adaptation; extends codon usage insights but leaves open control strategies.
Goose astroviruses (GoAstVs) are causative agents that account for fatal infection of goslings characterized by visceral urate deposition, resulting in severe economic losses in major goose-producing regions in China since 2017. In this study, we sought to unravel the intrinsic properties associated with adaptation and evolution in the host environment of GoAstVs. Consistent results from phylogenetic analysis and correspondence analysis performed on the codon usage patterns (CUPs) reveal 2 clusters of GoAstVs, namely, GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2. However, multiple similar compositional characteristics were found, despite the high divergence between GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2. Studies on the base composition of GoAstVs reveal an A/U bias, indicating a compositional constraint, while natural selection prevailed in determining the CUPs in the virus genome based on our neutrality plot analysis, reflecting high adaptive pressure to fit the host environment. Codon adaptation index (CAI) analysis revealed a higher degree of fitness to the CUPs of the corresponding host for GoAstVs than avian influenza virus and betacoronaviruses, which may be a favorable factor contributing to the high pathogenicity and wide distribution of GoAstVs in goslings. In addition, GoAstVs were less adapted to ducks and chickens, with significantly lower CAI values than to geese, which may be a reason for the different prevalence of GoAstVs among these species. Extensive investigations on dinucleotide distribution revealed a significant suppression of the CpG and UpA motifs in the virus genome, which may facilitate adaptation to the host's innate immune system by evading surveillance. In addition, our study reported the trends of increasing fitness to the host's microenvironment for GoAstVs through increasing adaptation to host CUPs and ongoing reduction of CpG motifs in the virus genome. The present analysis deepens our understanding of the basic biology, pathogenesis, adaptation and evolutionary pattern of GoAstVs, and contributes to the development of novel antiviral strategies.
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Guo et al. (2023) studied Goose astrovirus infection. Goose astroviruses (GoAstVs) codon usage patterns was evaluated on Codon usage patterns, base composition, and adaptation to host. Goose astroviruses exhibit high adaptive pressure to fit the host environment, with higher codon adaptation index values for geese compared to ducks and chickens, and suppression of CpG and UpA motifs.
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