Simian

Primate

Neuroscience

Biology

Viral replication

Viral hemorrhagic fever

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome

Viral disease

Virology

Ebola virus

Immunology

Simian immunodeficiency virus

African Green Monkey

Filoviridae

Hantavirus

Paramyxoviridae

Virus

Lassa fever

Cell

Simian arteriviruses are endemic in some African primates and can cause fatal hemorrhagic fevers when they cross into primate hosts of new species. We find that CD163 acts as an intracellular receptor for simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV; a simian arterivirus), a rare mode of virus entry that is shared with other hemorrhagic fever-causing viruses (e.g., Ebola and Lassa viruses). Further, SHFV enters and replicates in human monocytes, indicating full functionality of all of the human cellular proteins required for viral replication. Thus, simian arteriviruses in nature may not require major adaptations to the human host. Given that at least three distinct simian arteriviruses have caused fatal infections in captive macaques after host-switching, and that humans are immunologically naive to this family of viruses, development of serology tests for human surveillance should be a priority.

Primate hemorrhagic fever-causing arteriviruses are poised for spillover to humans