A Novel Hepacivirus with an Unusually Long and Intrinsically Disordered NS5A Protein in a Wild Old World Primate
Bibliographic record
Abstract
GB virus B (GBV-B; family Flaviviridae, genus Hepacivirus) has been studied in New World primates as a model for human hepatitis C virus infection, but the distribution of GBV-B and its relatives in nature has remained obscure. Here, we report the discovery of a novel and highly divergent GBV-B-like virus in an Old World monkey, the black-and-white colobus (Colobus guereza), in Uganda. The new virus, guereza hepacivirus (GHV), clusters phylogenetically with GBV-B and recently described hepaciviruses infecting African bats and North American rodents, and it shows evidence of ancient recombination with these other hepaciviruses. Direct sequencing of reverse-transcribed RNA from blood plasma from three of nine colobus monkeys yielded near-complete GHV genomes, comprising two distinct viral variants. The viruses contain an exceptionally long nonstructural 5A (NS5A) gene, approximately half of which codes for a protein with no discernible homology to known proteins. Computational structure-based analyses indicate that the amino terminus of the GHV NS5A protein may serve a zinc-binding function, similar to the NS5A of other viruses within the family Flaviviridae. However, the 521-amino-acid carboxy terminus is intrinsically disordered, reflecting an unusual degree of structural plasticity and polyfunctionality. These findings shed new light on the natural history and evolution of the hepaciviruses and on the extent of structural variation within the Flaviviridae.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".