Lyssaviruses (genus Lyssavirus) are negative-strand RNA viruses belonging to the family Rhabdoviridae. Although a lyssa-like virus (frog lyssa-like virus 1 [FLLV-1]), which is distantly related to lyssaviruses, was recently identified in frogs, a large phylogenetic gap exists between those viruses, and thus the evolution of lyssaviruses is unclear. In this study, we detected a lyssa-like virus from publicly available RNA-seq data obtained using the brain and skin of Anolis allogus (Spanish flag anole), which was designated anole lyssa-like virus 1 (ALLV-1), and determined its complete coding sequence. Via mapping analysis, we demonstrated that ALLV-1 was actively replicating in the original brain and skin samples. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that ALLV-1 is more closely related to lyssaviruses than FLLV-1. Overall, the topology of the tree is compatible with that of hosts, suggesting the long-term co-divergence of lyssa-like and lyssaviruses and vertebrates. The ψ region, which is a long 3′ untranslated region of unknown origin present in the G mRNA of lyssaviruses (approximately 400–700 nucleotides), is also present in the genome of ALLV-1, but it is much shorter (approximately 180 nucleotides) than those of lyssaviruses. Interestingly, FLLV-1 lacks the ψ region, suggesting that the ψ region was acquired after the divergence of the FLLV-1 and ALLV-1/lyssavirus lineages. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to identify a lyssa-like virus in reptiles, and thus, our findings provide novel insights into the evolution of lyssaviruses.

狂犬病病毒（狂犬病病毒属）是属于弹状病毒科的负链 RNA 病毒。尽管最近在青蛙中发现了一种与狂犬病病毒有远亲关系的狂犬病样病毒（青蛙狂犬病样病毒1 [FLLV-1]），但这些病毒之间存在很大的系统发育差距，因此狂犬病病毒的进化尚不清楚. 在这项研究中，我们从使用Anolis 同种异体动物的大脑和皮肤获得的公开可用的 RNA-seq 数据中检测到了一种类似 lyssa 的病毒（西班牙国旗 anole），被命名为 anole lyssa 样病毒 1（ALLV-1），并确定了其完整的编码序列。通过映射分析，我们证明 ALLV-1 在原始大脑和皮肤样本中积极复制。系统发育分析表明，与 FLLV-1 相比，ALLV-1 与狂犬病病毒的关系更密切。总体而言，树的拓扑结构与宿主的拓扑结构兼容，表明类狂犬病病毒和狂犬病病毒和脊椎动物的长期共同分化。ψ 区是狂犬病毒 G mRNA 中存在的未知来源的长 3' 非翻译区（大约 400-700 个核苷酸），也存在于 ALLV-1 的基因组中，但它要短得多（大约 180 个核苷酸） ) 而不是狂犬病病毒。有趣的是，FLLV-1 缺少 ψ 区域，表明 ψ 区域是在 FLLV-1 和 ALLV-1/狂犬病毒谱系分化后获得的。据我们所知，这是首次在爬行动物中鉴定出一种类似狂犬病病毒的报告，因此，我们的发现为狂犬病病毒的进化提供了新的见解。