Viral metagenomics of fecal samples from non-human primates revealed human astrovirus in a chimpanzee, China

BACKGROUND Human astroviruses (HAstVs) are commonly identified worldwide as important aetiological agents of acute gastroenteritis in all age groups. More and more evidences challenged the paradigm that AstV infections are species-specific. Yet to date, AstVs associated with human infections have not been detected in any animal hosts. RESULTS Viral metagenomics methods were used to detect viral nucleic acids in fecal samples from 69 captive non-human primates (NHPs) from three zoos in China. Sequence reads showing high similarity to astrovirus MLB2 were found in feces from a chimpanzee with diarrhea. The complete genome of this astrovirus was determined and deposited in the GenBank under accession number KX273058 (named SAstV-nj). Phylogenetic analysis based on complete genomes revealed that SAstV-nj was closely related to and shared >98% nucleotide sequence identity with the previous human astrovirus MLB2 strains. CONCLUSIONS This study suggested that MLB2-related astroviruses might have the potential of cross-species transmission between human and NHP.