Effects of in utero environment on virus evolution

Virus evolution studies in the maternal-placental-fetal triad will increase fundamental understanding of intra-host virus evolution and how new viruses emerge. Also, it may help to develop better monitoring strategies in pregnant populations to reduce virus transmission between humans and zoonotic spillovers from animals to humans. Towards this goal, our focused study was specifically designed to understand whether isolated in utero environment, with specific placental immunity and developing fetal immunity, is conducive to the emergence of new RNA and DNA virus variants. We used well-established porcine models for isolated in utero Zika virus (ZIKV) and porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) infections to reproduce a hypothetical scenario where founder viruses with limited genomic heterogeneity are transmitted via the placental barrier and establish in utero infection. Afterward, using NGS of nearly whole virus genomes and validated bioinformatics pipelines we profiled in utero heterogeneity of ZIKV and PCV2.