Scientific Publications

Cyprinid herpesvirus 3

Students in the Bioinformatics, Knowledge, and Data (BCD) track of the Master’s in Science and Digital Technologies for Health (program director: Anna-Sophie Fiston-Lavier) and those in the IMHE Master’s program (program director: Anne-Sophie Gosselin) have just published an international scientific article in thejournal *Viruses*.

This transdisciplinary collaborative project, initiated by Anne-Sophie Gosselin (Lecturer and Researcher in the Bio-MV Department), Jean-Christophe Avarre (researcher at ISEM-IRD) and Anna-Sophie Fiston-Lavier (lecturer and researcher in the Computer Science Department) duringthe Montpellier Omics Days, aimedto break down barriers between these programs by allowing students to pool their skills on a real research project.

The publication, titled “ Cyprinid Herpesvirus 3 Evolves In Vitro through an Assemblage of Haplotypes that Alternately Become Dominant or Under-Represented,” was accepted this summer by the journal *Viruses*. The students’ contributions were recognized, as all students from both cohorts of the two programs are co-authors of the paper.

Summary of the article:

In this publication, the authors investigated the evolution of cyprinid herpesvirus type 3 (CyHV-3), a 295-kilobase double-stranded DNA virus that causes carp herpesvirus disease (KHVD). Experimental evolution experiments were conducted in vitro by serially passing a CyHV-3 isolate through common carp cells and assessing the virus’s virulence during these passages. After 78 passages in cell culture, the isolate proved to be significantly less virulent than the initial isolate. A comparative genomic analysis of the viruses before and after passage 78 revealed a limited number of variations, the most notable of which is a 1,363-base-pair deletion in the virus’s gene 150. It is interesting to note that this deletion, which is highly prevalent in viral genomes after 78 passages, is not detected in the wild-type form of the virus (before passage) nor after 99 passages. These results, confirmed by digital PCR, suggest that CyHV-3 evolves, at least in vitro, through a dynamic assembly of viral haplotypes, which alternately become dominant or underrepresented.