{"id":56987,"date":"2019-09-13T08:40:41","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T15:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=56987"},"modified":"2019-09-13T08:40:42","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T15:40:42","slug":"west-nile-coconino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/west-nile-coconino\/","title":{"rendered":"Biologist: Two samples of West Nile in Coconino County came from different sources"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sept. 13, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After sequencing\nmore than 400 different genomes of the West Nile Virus, an NAU scientist\ndiscovered the two reports of West Nile Virus in Coconino County came from two\ndifferent places. One migrated north from the Phoenix area. The other is a bit\nmore of a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started with samples from throughout the western United States arriving at the lab of evolutionary biologist Crystal Hepp<\/strong>, who works with both the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute at Northern Arizona University. She collaborates with a dozen different public health departments throughout the West. They send her West Nile (WNV) samples found in their areas, and her team sequences the viral genomes and analyzes the data to reconstruct each sample\u2019s family tree, which allows her to determine how the virus is moving over time and throughout the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this\ncase, Coconino County Health Department sent her the two samples, one found in\nmosquitoes at Lake Mary and one in the Cheshire area, both in late August. Hepp\nsequenced the genomes of the virus strains, compared them to the virus strains\nshe\u2019d sequenced from other areas, and found that the two virus strains did not\nresult from local circulation of the virus, meaning they were not transmitted\namong birds and mosquitoes in the county. The Cheshire strain is closely\nrelated to strains circulating in Maricopa County, while the Lake Mary strain is\nmost closely related to a strain her team sequenced from Montana in 2018,\nthough the Lake Mary strain showed several different mutations from the Montana\nstrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was\nunexpected, Hepp said. It\u2019s also likely a good thing for Coconino County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe often\nthink the simplest answer is the most likely answer,\u201d she said. \u201cIt would have\nmade sense if these two strains, separated by only 10 miles, were due to the\nsame importation event. From a public health perspective, finding that these\ntwo strains are from two different places is good news. If they were closely\nrelated, it would mean that WNV had likely been cycled through birds and\nmosquitoes across 10 miles of Coconino County. We hope that the two separate\nintroductions have just been cycling in the very localized geographic locations\nthey were found, rather than across 10 miles, and that they just fade out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hepp\u2019s lab\nis a leader in the effort to better understand how the West Nile Virus\ncirculates in the American Southwest. Her public health partners make the\ninitial diagnosis, then send her strains to determine whether the virus\noriginated. Knowing and mapping those data can help governments better predict\nand prepare for the possibility of West Nile in their areas. Those partners\ninclude:<\/p>\n\n\n\n