Infection of humans by Powassan virus(POWV)occurs rarely but is potentially life‐threatening.First isolated in Ontario,Canada in 1958,the presence of POWV has been confirmed in three countries:Canada,the USA,and Russ...Infection of humans by Powassan virus(POWV)occurs rarely but is potentially life‐threatening.First isolated in Ontario,Canada in 1958,the presence of POWV has been confirmed in three countries:Canada,the USA,and Russia.Although a limited number of human cases has been reported thus far,the infection rate has shown signs of increasing during the 21^(st) century.Interestingly,POWV and a genetically close variant,deer tick virus(DTV),are the only member of the tick‐borne flaviviruses known to be endemic in North America and maintain in respective tick‐host cycles.In this review,we briefly summarize current knowledge involving the epidemiology and etiology,pathogenesis and immunity,molecular evolution,and protein functions of POWV,aiming to increase our understanding of the virus and unlock the potential to control this lethal pathogen.These data may also provide tools to minimize the future threat of other emerging and re‐emerging viruses.展开更多
基金This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(grants 81971501)National Key R&D Program of China(2021YFC0863400)+2 种基金William J.Liu is supported by the Excellent Young Scientist Program of the NSFC(81822040)George F.Gao is a leading principal investigator of the National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovative Research Group(grant 81621091)Xu Yang was supported in part by the Postdoctoral Fellowship of Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences.
文摘Infection of humans by Powassan virus(POWV)occurs rarely but is potentially life‐threatening.First isolated in Ontario,Canada in 1958,the presence of POWV has been confirmed in three countries:Canada,the USA,and Russia.Although a limited number of human cases has been reported thus far,the infection rate has shown signs of increasing during the 21^(st) century.Interestingly,POWV and a genetically close variant,deer tick virus(DTV),are the only member of the tick‐borne flaviviruses known to be endemic in North America and maintain in respective tick‐host cycles.In this review,we briefly summarize current knowledge involving the epidemiology and etiology,pathogenesis and immunity,molecular evolution,and protein functions of POWV,aiming to increase our understanding of the virus and unlock the potential to control this lethal pathogen.These data may also provide tools to minimize the future threat of other emerging and re‐emerging viruses.
