Bat Coronavirus of Pteropus alecto from Gorontalo Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Bats have been known as natural reservoirs for potential emerging infectious viruses, such as Lyssaviruses, Coronaviruses, Ebola viruses, Nipah virus, and many others. Because of their abudance in population, wide distribution and mobility, bats have a greater risk as source for zoonotic transmission than other animals. Despite the facts of their role as reservoirs for many pathogens, not until an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 and Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, that people pay much attention about coronavirus in bats. SARS-like virus also found in bats with a higher prevalence rate. This study aims to detect the coronavirus of bats in Gorontalo province Indonesia, characterization at the molecular level of the coronavirus genome and determining the level of kinship (through trees filogenetic). This study was conducted as part of bigger PREDICT Indonesia project, in particular to examine coronavirus in bats from Gorontalo province, Indonesia. As many as 95 rectal swab samples collected from flying foxes (Pteropus alecto) were analyzed in the laboratory using Consensus Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique to amplify the target sequence from RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase (RdRp) gene with 434 basepair product, resulted 24 samples determined as presumptive positive. Eight out of 24 presumptive positive samples by PCR were analyzed further by nucleotide sequencing and confirmed coronavirus positive. Phylogenetic tree analyses to the eight coronavirus confirmed-sequences were constructed with MEGA-6.0 . The conclusion was 24 out of 95 samples suggested as presumptive positive to Bat CoV. Eight out of 24 samples were analyzed further by nucleotide sequencing and have similarities in the kinship. Three samples had the 98% nucleotide identity to BatCoV from Indonesia and five samples were 85-88% nucleotide identity to BatCoV from Thailand.

Co‐circulation of alpha‐ and beta‐coronaviruses in Pteropus vampyrus flying foxes from Indonesia

“…In this study, we report the co-circulation of alpha-and beta-CoVs within a P. vampyrus colony in West Java. Detection of beta-CoV from P. vampyrus in this study is consistent with previous findings of Nobecovirus subgenus in pteropodid bats found within tropical and subtropical areas of China and Singapore (Luo et al, 2018;Mendenhall et al, 2017;Ruiz-Aravena et al, 2021;Wong et al, 2019) as well as HKU9-like CoVs in flying foxes (Febriani et al, 2018;Kudagammana et al, 2018;Lau et al, 2010;Yadav et al, 2020) from India and Indonesia. A majority of bat beta-CoVs reported were assigned to Nobecovirus and are widely reported in fruit bats, namely Rousettus, Cynopterus and Eonycteris bats (Lau et al, 2010;Mendenhall et al, 2017).…”

“…Such behaviour could promote the sustained intra‐colony transmission and genetic recombination in CoVs, contributing to the emergence of novel strains, which could lead to spillover events. Even though flying foxes are not commonly considered reservoirs of CoVs, multiple studies have detected these viruses in Pteropus bats from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India (Febriani et al., 2018; Kudagammana et al., 2018; Wacharapluesadee et al., 2018; Yadav et al., 2020). Continuous reporting and surveillance of CoVs are lacking in the central Indo‐Pacific Region, which harbours a high diversity of Pteropus species, including the migratory and widespread P. vampyrus (Tsang et al., 2020).…”

Molecular detection of bat coronaviruses in three bat species in Indonesia

“…In 2015, Anindita et al [ 24 ] reported a bat betacoronavirus (Bat betaCoV) in Dobsonia moluccensis acquired in Paguyaman, Gorontalo Province, Indonesia. Furthermore, Febriani et al [ 25 ] reported that Pteropus alecto in Gorontalo Province carried Bat betaCoV. This study reports for the first time the presence of bat coronaviruses (BatCoV) in 3 species of bats sold by traders at live animal markets in Central Java Province, and bat collectors in West Java Province and Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia.…”

“…In 2018, BatCoVs were detected in P. alecto from the Gorontalo Province, Indonesia. Those 3 BatCoVs isolates (INDSWBT101, INDSWBT102, INDSWBT103) have 98% nucleotide similarity with Indonesian isolates, namely Bat Coronavirus Indonesia IFB 2012-8F D. moluccensis [ 24 ], meanwhile the 5 other isolates (INDSWBT110, INDSWBT192, INDSWBT198, INDSWBT180, INDSWBT195) have 85%–88% nucleotide similarity with Bat Coronavirus BtCoV/B55762/S.hea/CB/Tha/6/2012 isolated from Scotophilus heathii in Thailand [ 25 ].…”