Leishmania is a genus of the family Trypanosomatidae that unites obligatory parasitic flagellates causing a variety of vector-borne diseases collectively called leishmaniasis. The symptoms range from relatively innocuous skin lesions to complete failures of visceral organs. The disease is exacerbated if a parasite harbors Leishmania RNA viruses (LRVs) of the family Pseudototiviridae. Screening a novel isolate of L. braziliensis, we revealed that it possesses not a toti-, but a bunyavirus of the family Leishbuviridae. To the best of our knowledge, this is a very first discovery of a bunyavirus infecting a representative of the Leishmania subgenus Viannia. We suggest that these viruses may serve as potential factors of virulence in American leishmaniasis and encourage researchers to test leishmanial strains for the presence of not only LRVs, but also other RNA viruses.

Central European Institute of Technology Masaryk University Brno Czechia

Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases Departments of Tropical Disease Biology and Vector Biology Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Liverpool United Kingdom

Department of Biomedical Sciences Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp Belgium

Department of Biomedical Sciences University of Antwerp Antwerp Belgium

Department of Infectious Diseases 2nd Faculty of Medicine and Clinics of Infectious Parasitic and Tropical Diseases Bulovka University Hospital Charles University Prague Czechia

Department of Infectious Diseases Regional Hospital Liberec Liberec Czechia

Department of Microbiology Immunology and Transplantation Rega Institute for Medical Research Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Leuven Belgium

Department of Parasitology Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Czechia

Faculty of Biology Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia

Life Science Research Centre Faculty of Science University of Ostrava Ostrava Czechia

Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences St Petersburg Russia

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The first RNA viruses detected in a trypanosome