A Search for Tick-Associated, Bronnoya-like Virus Spillover into Sheep

Tick-borne diseases are responsible for many vector-borne diseases within Europe. Recently, novel viruses belonging to a new viral family of the order Bunyavirales were discovered in numerous tick species. In this study, we used metatranscriptomics to detect the virome, including novel viruses, associated with Ixodes ricinus collected from Romania and France. A bunyavirus-like virus related to the Bronnoya virus was identified for the first time in these regions. It presents a high level of amino-acid conservation with Bronnoya-related viruses identified in I. ricinus ticks from Norway and Croatia and with the Ixodes scapularis bunyavirus isolated from a tick cell line in Japan in 2014. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the Bronnoya viruses’ sub-clade is distinct from several Bunyavirales families, suggesting that it could constitute a novel family within the order. To determine if Bronnoya viruses could constitute novel tick-borne arboviruses, a Luciferase immunoprecipitation assay for detecting antibodies in the viral glycoprotein of the Romanian Bronnoya virus was used to screen sera from small ruminants exposed to tick bites. No positive serum was detected, suggesting that this virus is probably not able to infect small ruminants. This study represents the first serological investigation of mammalian infections with a Bronnoya-like virus and an initial step in the identification of potential new emergences of tick-borne arboviruses.