The most complete Ebola genome yet: What it can tell us

Its a murderer on a killing spree, and now it has a new and remarkably complete genetic mug shot.

An international team of scientists has sequenced the RNA of 99 Ebola virus samples collected during the early weeks of the outbreak in Sierra Leone. The feat, described Thursday in the journal Science, gives researchers a powerful new tool in their effort to contain the deadly virus.

The genome sequence of a virus is the blueprint on which that virus is built, said Pardis Sabeti, the Harvard geneticist who helped oversee the study. Diagnostics are built on knowing that sequence; vaccines are also built using genome sequences. And if you want to build those as best you can, you want to know what the virus looks like today.

Scientists are already scouring that sequence for clues to help them design effective drugs and vaccines. It could take years to find them all, said Sabeti, who studies infectious diseases at Harvard and at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass.

For now, evidence embedded in the RNA reveals that the Ebola virus responsible for killing at least 1,552 people so far originated with a single transmission from an animal to a human in Guinea. It also shows that this lineage, which first emerged in humans in 2013, diverged from other variants of Ebola in 2004.

Sabeti and her team began sequencing Ebola samples in June, just days after the virus was first detected in Sierra Leone on May 25. The results have been available to scientists on the National Center for Biotechnology Informations website since mid-June, almost as soon as the sequencing machines spit them out.We want to enable everyone in the scientific community to look at the genetic sequences at once and crowd-source a solution, she said.

The urgency for better treatments is real for Sabeti and her colleagues. Five of the study co-authors in Sierra Leone have died of Ebola since contributing to the research.

Among them were Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who had 10 years experience treating patients who contracted deadly viruses; Mbalu Fonnie, a senior matron of nursing and midwife; lab technician Mohamed Fullah; and nurses Alex Moigboi and Alice Kovoma.

It has been an emotional time for us, said study co-leader Stephen Gire, a research scientist at Harvard and the Broad Institute who studies the evolution of viruses. It makes us want to work harder to get this information out there.

The 99 sequences described in the study were collected from 78 patients seen at Kenema Government Hospital during the first three weeks of the outbreak. Samples were taken twice from some patients, so that researchers could see how the virus mutates in a single person.

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The most complete Ebola genome yet: What it can tell us