PSIII-12 - Identification and Classification of Novel Animal Associated Viruses from the Human Skin Virome of Pet Owners and Agricultural Workers

Abstract: Viruses are the most abundant biological entity on earth. Despite this, viral diversity in current reference databases is poorly described. With limited number of studies investigating environmental viromes, our understanding of the virosphere composition and diversity is limited. Improvement in metagenomic sequencing methodologies has allowed for identification of novel genomic sequences, especially for new and emerging viral taxa, and improvement in existing ambiguous viral phylogenetic groupings. Here we describe a viral discovery-based study that evaluated viral metagenomes collected from the hands and scalps of 42 human subjects (n=642) for identification of environmentally contracted DNA viruses. Due to direct interaction between humans and animals either through owning pets or through vocation, it is hypothesized that surveillance of the human skin virome will contain animal associated viruses contracted through environmental contact that can then potentially become zoonotic pathogens. To investigate this, viral genome assemblies from the metagenomes were bioinformatically predicted using model and reference-based tools. A gene and protein sequence variation and binning approach was then employed to resolve viral dark matter. Evaluation of animal associated viruses resulted in the identification of a feline papillomavirus from a subject who reportedly owned a cat. Phylogenetic analysis suggests this isolate is related to feline papillomavirus type 2 sharing approximately 75% sequence synteny thus making it a novel papillomavirus isolate. Additionally, a new grouping of porcine associated Cressdnaviricota viruses were identified through protein sequence similarity network clustering of conserved Rep genes and all other NCBI reported Rep gene sequences. This grouping contained both novel viral genomes collected from the human skin virome dataset and unclassified Cressdnaviruses all collected from porcine samples obtained from NCBI. Further phylogenetic analysis showed similarity to this novel cluster to that of porcine circovirus (PCV). This discovery and phylogenetic based investigation of novel viral genome assemblies demonstrates that animal associated viruses can be identified from the skin of humans and thus studying human viromes can provide information into the spread and emergence of novel viruses.