Very inconclusive conclusion on the source of the current Ebola Virus outbreak Conclusion The phylogenetic analysis of the five ebolavirus species here does not substantially improve on that presented by Baize et al.1 in that even when partitioning the alignment into coding and non-coding regions we get inconsistent rooting positions for the EBOV clade. We believe that at present no suitable outgroup sequences to root the EBOV phylogeny exist and that a temporal rooting gives the most consistent results. This approach indicates that the outbreak in Guinea is likely caused by a Zaire ebolavirus lineage that has spread from Central Africa into Guinea and West Africa in recent decades, and does not represent the emergence of a divergent and endemic virus. As the GP sequences show, without more diverse sequences, especially those from the animal reservoir, it is difficult to narrow down the estimates of when and through what means the Central African EBOV lineage has been introduced into West Africa.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 07:05:45 +0000
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