Review on Viral Metagenomics and Its Future Perspective in Zoonotic and Arboviral Disease Surveillance

Abstract

Viral metagenomics or full-length genome sequencing of enriched viral particle preparations has been frequently applied for viral discovery resulting in the genetic characterization of numerous human and animal viruses. The  non- specific nature of viral metagenomics endows it with great potential as a unversal virus detection assay. Historical methods includes, electron microscopy, cell culture, inoculation in suckling mice and serology. Many viruses cannot be cultivated, excluding the use of cell line isolation and serologic techniques, and can only be characterized by molecular methods. The molecular-based techniques provide sensitive and rapid means of virus detection and identification. Most of these tests are designed to be virus-specific that makes them unsuitable for detection of unexpected and/or completely new viruses, as well as novel viral variants that poses great challenge due their re-emrgince property. The recently developed approaches of viral metagenomics provide an effective novel way to screen samples and detect viruses without previous knowlege of the infectious agent, thereby enabling a better diagnosis and disease control. The basic steps involved in viral metagenomics include preparation of viral nucleic acid that is free from host and contaminating nuceic acids, sequence-independent amplification of viral nucleic acid,sequencing and use of bioinformatics tools for analysis of sequnce generated. Viral metagenomics aims to provide the genetic composition of the complete viral population of a sample in an unbiased and culture-independent manner. Viral metagenomics has been successfully used to investigate viral populations in different environments such as seawater, gastreointestinal tracts, and respiratory samples and have demonstrated that there is a high diversity among viruses. Many potential emerging viruses of concern might already be infecting humans, domestic animals or wlidlife but awailt their detection by disease surveilla-nce which can be possible through application of viral metagenomics. This review aims to de-scribes the different possible steps of a viral metagenomics and its future application in viral zonootic and arboviral disease surveillance.

Keywords: Arboviral disease, Bioinformatics,  Emerging infectious disease, Sequencing, Surveillance, Viral metagenomics.

Begna Bulcha