Copyright © 2008 de Lamballerie et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Chikungunya virus adapts to tiger mosquito via evolutionary convergence: a sign of things to come? Corresponding author. Xavier de Lamballerie: xavier.de-lamballerie/at/univmed.fr; Eric Leroy: eric.leroy/at/ird.fr; Rémi N Charrel: remi.charrel/at/medecine.univ-mrs.fr; Konstantin Ttsetsarkin: kotsetsa/at/utmb.edu; Stephen Higgs: sthiggs/at/utmb.edu; Ernest A Gould: eag/at/ceh.ac.uk Received January 11, 2008; Accepted February 27, 2008. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | ||||
Abstract Since 2004, several million indigenous cases of Chikungunya virus disease occurred in Africa, the Indian Ocean, India, Asia and, recently, Europe. The virus, usually transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, has now repeatedly been associated with a new vector, Ae. Albopictus. Analysis of full-length viral sequences reveals three independent events of virus exposure to Ae. Albopictus, each followed by the acquisition of a single adaptive mutation providing selective advantage for transmission by this mosquito. This disconcerting and current unique example of "evolutionary convergence" occurring in nature illustrates rapid pathogen adaptation to ecological perturbation, driven directly as a consequence of human activities. | ||||