Detection of polyoma and corona viruses in bats of Canada

Abstract

Several instances of emerging diseases in humans appear to be caused by the spillover of viruses endemic to bats, either directly or through other animal intermediaries. The objective of this study was to detect, identify and characterize viruses in bats in the province of Manitoba and other regions of Canada. Bats were sampled from three sources: live-trapped Myotis lucifugus from Manitoba, rabies-negative Eptesicus fuscus, M. lucifugus, M. yumanensis, M. septentrionalis, M. californicus, M. evotis, Lasionycteris (L.) noctivagans and Lasiurus (Las.) cinereus, provided by the Centre of Expertise for Rabies of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), and L. noctivagans, Las. cinereus and Las. borealis collected from a wind farm in Manitoba. We attempted to isolate viruses from fresh tissue samples taken from trapped bats in cultured cells of bat, primate, rodent, porcine, ovine and avian origin. We also screened bat tissues by PCR using primers designed to amplify nucleic acids from members of certain families of viruses. We detected RNA of a group 1 coronavirus from M. lucifugus (3 of 31 animals) and DNA from an asyet undescribed polyomavirus from female M. lucifugus (4 of 31 animals) and M. californicus (pooled tissues from two females).

Beyond H&E

“…21,99 A number of novel animal polyomaviruses have recently been identified through the use of a nested broad-spectrum PCR assay developed by Johne et al 51 This consensus assay targets the conserved regions of the polyomavirus VP1 gene. With this assay, novel polyomaviruses were detected from fresh tissues, blood, or feces collected from a chimpanzee, 51 a squirrel monkey, 130 bats of Canada, 85 Bornean and Sumatran orangutans, 39 and wild rodents from Zambia. 98 The consensus PCR also worked well for the detection of polyomavirus in FFPE samples, despite the product size target (>600 bp) of the first-round PCR.…”

Highly diversified coronaviruses in neotropical bats

“…There are only two studies on bat CoVs from the Neotropics, one from Trinidad and Tobago yielding two highly diversified alphacoronaviruses (Carrington et al, 2008) and a recently published second one from Mexico yielding alpha and betacoronaviruses summarized in 13 different clades (Anthony et al, 2013). From the neighbouring temperate northern American areas, additional bat alphacoronavirus clades have been described (Dominguez et al, 2007;Donaldson et al, 2010;Huynh et al, 2012;Misra et al, 2009;Osborne et al, 2011).…”

Polyomavirus Infection in a Free-Ranging California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) with Intestinal T-Cell Lymphoma

“…Among mammals, infection has been identified in humans, nonhuman primates, rodents, bats, and cattle. 7,9,14,21 In non-immune-compromised endemic mammalian hosts, natural infections have not typically been linked with severe disease but may lead to subclinical, persistent, ubiquitous infections. 9 In humans, reactivation can occur in immune-suppressed individuals, leading to severe and sometimes fatal disease including hemorrhagic cystitis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, and Merkel cell carcinoma.…”