Virus sequencing of museum mammal specimens to define environmental and anthropogenic drivers of virus ecology and to understand disease outbreaks.

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Tissue samples from preserved specimens in natural history collections can reveal major insights into the evolutionary history of modern-day viruses that cause disease, and help define genetic changes that enable viruses to jump between species. We will focus on the two orders of mammals known to be a major source of new human and animal viral diseases - bats and rodents. Viruses contain either DNA or RNA genomes. RNA viruses tend to evolve very rapidly and frequently jump between species. DNA is relatively stable and can remains intact for many thousands of years. However, RNA - especially single stranded RNA - is far more fragile. This has meant that there has been little effort, and therefore success in obtaining RNA virus sequence signatures from historical (museum) specimens. At the Natural History Museum UK, we have one of the largest collections of well-preserved mammal specimens collected as far back as 1700s. These samples could provide a direct window into the evolutionary past of modern viral infections. This proof-of-concept study will focus on the optimisation of specimen sampling and RNA retrieval methods to identify tissues, extraction, and genetic sequencing protocols and that routinely deliver RNA of sufficient quantity and quality to enable detection and discovery of known and novel viruses. If successful in our proof-of-concept study, work on our existing collections of animals would save decades of effort, and millions in research funding required to sample live animals. It would open future, innovative research to define environmental, host and anthropogenic drivers of virus evolution, cross-species transmission and past and future animal and human disease outbreaks.