Hade Ramos and Jenniffer Angulo on Andes virus

So as I said earlier, your study is a retrospective genomic epidemiological study, so talking about Andes virus genome here.

Just to give a bit more context before we jump into the findings, Jennifer, I wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about the Andes virus genome itself and the genomic evidence base before your study.

Sure.

So over the years, through different research projects and in collaboration with Dr. Marcela Ferrez laboratory and other colleagues, we had built up a collection of samples from Andes virus cases across Chile.

So for this study, we were able to go back to those samples.

Andes virus has a genome made up of three segments of negative-sense RNA called S, M, and L based on their size, small, medium, and large.

And together, these three segments encode five viral proteins.

Before we started this study, some genomic information of Andes virus was already available, but it was still quite limited, especially in Chile, where Andes virus has been recognized for more than 30 years.

Most of the sequences available in public databases covered only small parts of the viral genome.

So rather than focusing just on fragments, we move to complete viral genomes.

And why? Because if you only look at small fragments, you can miss important differences or even wrongly assume that viruses are more similar than they really are.

So with complete genomes, we can better see how lineages are related, track their movement in time and space, and confidently say whether there is or isn't evidence for things like reassortment.

And that was really the gap we wanted to fill with this study to get a much more complete picture of the genomic diversity of Andes virus circulating in our country.

And just to pinpoint on the fact that you were looking at genomes specifically from Chile, I'm aware that there were outbreaks of Andes virus in 1996 and in 2018 in Argentina.

What was the state of genomic evidence, you know, in South America wide, and what's the spread of Andes virus in this region?

Andes virus circulates across different regions of South America, particularly in Chile and Argentina, so this genetic diversity help us to understand how the virus evolved and express across geographical boundaries.

Between Chile and Argentina, we share a viral lineage in the cross-border area, but in the databases, we only see sequences from Argentina cases and no much sequences from Chile.

So our study goes to fill that gap, and now we have a complete picture of the...

It's like a diversity map of Andes virus in, in the southern cone.

Yeah, you've got an amazing figure in the paper, which has got a map, and that really pulls together exactly what you were saying, how you're filling this research, research gap of genomic evidence in Chile specifically, and then contextualizing it within South America more broadly.

Thanks so much.