Identification and evolutionary analysis of papillomavirus sequences in New World monkeys (genera Sapajus and Alouatta) from Argentina

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we investigated the occurrence of papillomavirus (PV) infection in non-human primates (NHPs) in northeastern Argentina. We also explored their evolutionary history and evaluated the co-speciation hypothesis in the context of primate evolution. Methods: We obtained DNA samples from 57 individuals belonging to wild and captive populations of Alouatta caraya, Sapajus nigritus, and Sapajus cay. We assessed PV infection by PCR amplification with the CUT primer system and sequencing of 337 bp (112 amino acids) of the L1 gene. The viral sequences were analyzed by phylogenetic and Bayesian coalescence methods to estimate the time to the most common recent ancestor (tMRCA) using BEAST, v1.4.8 software. We evaluated viral/host tree congruence with TreeMap v3.0. Results: We identified two novel putative PV sequences of the genus Gammapapillomavirus in Sapajus spp. and Alouatta caraya (SPV1 and AcPV1, respectively). The tMRCA of SPV1 was estimated to be 11,941,682 years before present (ybp), and that of AcPV1 was 46,638,071 ybp, both before the coalescence times of their hosts (6.4 million years ago [MYA] and 6.8 MYA, respectively). Based on the comparison of primate and viral phylogenies, we found that the PV tree was no more congruent with the host tree than a random tree would be (P > 0.05), thus allowing us to reject the model of virus-host coevolution. Conclusion: This study presents the first evidence of PV infection in platyrrhine species from Argentina, expands the range of described hosts for these viruses, and suggests new scenarios for their origin and dispersal.