Tick-borne encephalitis virus subtypes emerged through rapid vector switches rather than gradual evolution

Tick-borne encephalitis is the most important human arthropod-borne virus disease in Europe and Russia, with an annual incidence of about 13 thousand people. Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is distributed in the natural foci of forest and taiga zones of Eurasia, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Currently, there are three mutually exclusive hypotheses about the origin and distribution of TBEV subtypes, although they are based on the same assumption of gradual evolution. Recently, we have described the structure of TBEV populations in terms of a clusteron approach, a clusteron being a structural unit of viral population [Kovalev and Mukhacheva (2013) Infect. Genet. Evol., 14, 22–28]. This approach allowed us to investigate questions of TBEV evolution in a new way and to propose a hypothesis of quantum evolution due to a vector switch. We also consider a possible mechanism for this switch occurring in interspecific hybrids of ticks. It is necessarily accompanied by a rapid accumulation of mutations in the virus genome, which is contrary to the generally accepted view of gradual evolution in assessing the ages of TBEV populations. The proposed hypothesis could explain and predict not only the formation of new subtypes, but also the emergence of new vector-borne viruses.