Bourbon virus

The recovery of a Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann (Acari: Ixodidae) tick from a dog in Benton County, Arkansas, in 2018 triggered a significant environmental sampling effort in Hobbs State Park Conservation Area. The objective of the investigation was to assess the tick population density and diversity, as well as identify potential tick-borne pathogens that could pose a risk to public health. During a week-long sampling period in August of 2018, a total of 6,154 ticks were collected, with the majority identified as Amblyomma americanum (L), (Acari: Ixodidae) commonly known as the lone star tick...

Viruses in the thogotovirus genus of the family Orthomyxoviridae are much less well-understood than influenza viruses despite documented zoonotic transmission and association with human disease. This study therefore developed a cell-cell fusion assay and three pseudotyping tools and used them to assess envelope function and cell tropism. Envelope glycoproteins of Dhori (DHOV), Thogoto (THOV), Bourbon, and Sinu viruses were all revealed to exhibit pH-dependent triggering of membrane fusion. Lentivirus vectors were robustly pseudotyped with these glycoproteins while influenza virus vectors showed pseudotyping compatibility, albeit at lower efficiencies...

Heartland (HRTV) and Bourbon (BRBV) viruses are newly identified tick-borne viruses, isolated from serious clinical cases in 2009 and 2014, respectively. Both viruses originated in the lower Midwest United States near the border of Missouri and Kansas, cause similar disease manifestations, and are presumably vectored by the same tick species, Amblyomma americanum Linnaeus (Ixodida: Ixodidae). In this article, we provide a current review of HRTV and BRBV, including the virology, epidemiology, and ecology of the viruses with an emphasis on the tick vector...

The recent discovery of Bourbon virus (BRBV) put a new focus on the genus of thogotoviruses as zoonotic, tick-transmitted pathogens within the orthomyxovirus family. Since 2014, BRBV has been linked to several human cases in the Midwest United States with severe acute febrile illness and a history of tick bites. The detection of the virus in the Lone Star tick, Amblyomma americanum , and a high sero-prevalence in wild animals suggest widespread circulation of BRBV. Phylogenetic analysis of the viral RNA genome classified BRBV into the subgroup of Dhori-like thogotoviruses...

Bourbon virus (BRBV, family Orthomyxoviridae ) is a tickborne virus recently detected in the United States (US). BRBV was first identified from a fatal human case in 2014 in Bourbon County, Kansas. Enhanced surveillance in Kansas and Missouri implicated Amblyomma americanum as the primary vector for BRBV. Historically, BRBV was only detected in the lower midwestern US, but since 2020 it has been reported in North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York State (NYS). This study aimed to elucidate genetic and phenotypic characteristics of BRBV strains from NYS through whole genome sequencing and the assessment of replication kinetics in mammalian cultures and A...

Ticks are obligatory hematophagous arthropods that harbor and transmit infectious pathogens to humans and animals. Tick species belonging to Amblyomma , Ixodes , Dermacentor , and Hyalomma genera may transmit certain viruses such as Bourbon virus (BRBV), Dhori virus (DHOV), Powassan virus (POWV), Omsk hemorrhagic fever virus (OHFV), Colorado tick fever virus (CTFV), Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), Heartland virus (HRTV), Kyasanur forest disease virus (KFDV), etc. that affect humans and certain wildlife...

Lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum L.) are expanding within the northeast United States, a region historically focused on Ixodes scapularis-transmitted diseases. In Monmouth County, NJ, the shift has been dramatic, and lone star ticks now vastly outnumber blacklegged ticks. As a result, there is an enhanced need to focus on the potential health risks of A. americanum-transmitted pathogens, such as the emerging Heartland (HRTV) and Bourbon (BRBV) viruses. We screened 1,205 nymphal lone star ticks for HRTV and BRBV using RT-qPCR assays and detected BRBV in 3 ticks collected in Monmouth County, NJ, in 2021...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

In July 2019, Bourbon virus RNA was detected in an Amblyomma americanum tick removed from a resident of Long Island, New York, USA. Tick infection and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) serosurvey results demonstrate active transmission in New York, especially Suffolk County, emphasizing a need for surveillance anywhere A. americanum ticks are reported.

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic triggered considerable attention to the emergence and evolution of novel human pathogens. Bourbon virus (BRBV) was first discovered in 2014 in Bourbon County, Kansas, USA. Since its initial discovery, several cases of BRBV infection in humans have been identified in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. BRBV is classified within the Thogotovirus genus; these negative-strand RNA viruses appear to be transmitted by ticks, and much of their biology remains unknown...

As demonstrated by the 2015 Zika virus outbreak in the Americas, emerging and re-emerging arboviruses are public health threats that warrant research investment for the development of effective prophylactics and therapeutics. Many arboviral diseases are underreported, neglected, or of low prevalence, yet they all have the potential to cause outbreaks of local and international concern. Here, we show the production of virus-like particles (VLPs) using a rapid and efficient recombinant vaccinia virus (VACV) expression system for five tick- and mosquito-borne arboviruses: Powassan virus (POWV), Heartland virus (HRTV), severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), Bourbon virus (BRBV) and Mayaro virus (MAYV)...

Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are bacterial, viral, and parasitic diseases transmitted by ticks. Viral TBDs have increased in prevalence over the last decade with many new pathogenic viruses being discovered. Doxycycline is often empirically prescribed by clinicians to treat symptomatic patients following tick bites due to suspicions of bacterial TBDs such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichiosis. However, viral TBDs are included in the differential diagnosis if patients do not clinically improve following antibiotic therapy...

Heartland and Bourbon viruses are pathogenic tick-borne viruses putatively transmitted by Amblyomma americanum, an abundant tick species in Missouri. To assess the prevalence of these viruses in ticks, we collected 2778 ticks from eight sampling sites at Tyson Research Center, an environmental field station within St. Louis County and close to the City of St. Louis, from May - July in 2019 and 2021. Ticks were pooled according to life stage and sex, grouped by year and sampling site to create 355 pools and screened by RT-qPCR for Bourbon and Heartland viruses...

Bourbon virus (BRBV) was first isolated from a blood sample collected from a male patient living in Bourbon county, Kansas, during the spring of 2014. The patient later died due to complications associated with multiorgan failure. Currently, several BRBV infection-caused deaths have been reported in the United States, and misdiagnosed cases are often undercounted. BRBV is a member of the genus Thogotovirus of the Orthomyxoviridae family, and is transmitted through the Lone Star tick, Amblyomma Americanum , in North America...

Bourbon virus (BRBV) was first discovered in 2014 in a fatal human case. Since then it has been detected in the tick Amblyomma americanum in the states of Missouri and Kansas in the United States. Despite the high prevalence of BRBV in ticks in these states, very few human cases have been reported, and the true infection burden of BRBV in the community is unknown. Here, we developed two virus neutralization assays, a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-BRBV pseudotyped rapid assay and a BRBV focus reduction neutralization assay, to assess the seroprevalence of BRBV neutralizing antibodies in human sera collected in 2020 in St...

Haemaphysalis longicornis (Neumann, 1901) (Acari: Ixodidae), the Asian longhorned tick, is an invasive tick species present in the USA since at least 2017 and has been detected in one-third of Virginia counties. While this species is associated with the transmission of multiple pathogens in its native geographical range of eastern Asia, little is known about its ability to acquire and transmit pathogens in the USA, specifically those that are transmissible to humans, although from an animal health perspective, it has already been shown to vector Theileria orientalis Ikeda strains...

Ticks are known vectors of several viral, bacterial, and protozoal pathogens that cause disease in both humans and animals. While pathogen prevalence has been studied extensively in other portions of the United States, pathogen surveillance studies within tick populations in the central Appalachian region of Virginia is almost nonexistent. Two prominent species in this region are Ixodes scapularis (the blacklegged tick) and Amblyomma americanum (the lone star tick). In this study, we collected ticks biweekly from three habitat types (forest, urban, and pasture) across eight counties in southwest Virginia from June, 2019-November, 2020...

Report of a human death and exposure of white-tailed deer to Heartland virus (HRTV) in Georgia, USA, prompted the sampling of questing ticks during 2018-2019 in 26 sites near where seropositive deer were captured and the residence of the human case-patient. We processed 9,294 Amblyomma americanum ticks in pools by virus isolation in Vero E6 cells and reverse transcription PCR. Positive pools underwent whole-genome sequencing. Three pools were positive for HRTV (minimum infection rate 0.46/1,000 ticks) and none for Bourbon virus...

Thogotoviruses are tick-borne arboviruses that comprise a unique genus within the Orthomyxoviridae family. Infections with thogotoviruses primarily cause disease in livestock with occasional reports of human infections suggesting a zoonotic potential. In the past, multiple genetically distinct thogotoviruses were isolated mostly from collected ticks. However, many aspects regarding their phylogenetic relationships, morphological characteristics and virulence in mammals remain unclear. For the present comparative study, we used a collection of ten different thogotovirus isolates from different geographic areas...

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a rare autoimmune demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy that causes an ascending paralysis and flaccid weakness. Tick paralysis is a mimic of GBS as symptoms include generalized weakness and paralysis. However, symptom onset and timing as well as lab findings can distinguish between them. We present a case of a 71-year-old female who complained of generalized weakness and dizziness starting three weeks prior to admission. During that time, she had fevers and chills and a questionable insect bite...