Researchers at Penn State and the University of Minnesota Duluth have pinpointed characteristics that can predict whether a virus will persist after spilling over to a new species. Their findings, published in PLOS Biology, could revolutionize pandemic prevention strategies.
A breakthrough study by researchers from Penn State and the University of Minnesota Duluth is shedding light on the critical early traits of pathogens that can help predict whether a virus will potentially cause a pandemic.
The research, published in PLOS Biology, aims to revolutionize pandemic prevention efforts by focusing on certain characteristics of viruses that spill over to new host species.
Senior author David Kennedy, an associate professor of biology at Penn State, highlighted the challenges of current pandemic prevention strategies.
“Pandemic prevention efforts largely focus on identifying the next pandemic pathogen, but that’s like finding a needle in the haystack,” Kennedy said in a news release. “This work helps us figure out which outbreaks to worry about so that we can direct our public health resources where they need to go to prevent and respond to disease emergence.”
Viral spillover events occur frequently, but not all lead to pandemics.
The researchers wanted to determine if there are measurable traits immediately following a spillover event that could predict the likelihood of the virus persisting in a new population.
“We wanted to know if there is anything we can measure directly after a spillover event or if there are characteristics of a spillover event that would be predictive of whether the virus would or would not persist in a new population,” added lead author Clara Shaw, who was a postdoctoral scholar in biology at Penn State at the time of the research and is now an assistant professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
The researchers utilized a worm model system to examine disease transmission at a population level. They exposed eight strains of Caenorhabditis nematodes to the Orsay virus and monitored their interactions over several generations, looking at infection rates, viral shedding and infection susceptibility.
They discovered that infection prevalence, viral shedding and infection susceptibility are key indicators of whether a virus will sustain itself in a new host population.
Infection prevalence and viral shedding, in particular, were both significantly correlated with the persistence of the virus.
“That means these early traits can actually tell us quite a bit about what’s going to happen way off in the future,” Kennedy added.
The research aims to provide a new, proactive approach to prevent pandemics by focusing on early indicators rather than trying to predict which specific pathogens will become pandemics. This could enormously enhance the efficiency and impact of public health interventions.
The team plans to continue their research by exploring how pathogens adapt to new hosts at the genetic level, potentially revealing what genetic changes enable viruses to persist longer term.
Source: Pennsylvania State University