Diversity of bat astroviruses in Lao PDR and Cambodia

Abstract

Astroviruses are known to infect humans and a wide range of animal species, and can cause gastroenteritis in their hosts. Recent studies have reported astroviruses in bats in Europe and in several locations in China. We sampled 1876 bats from 17 genera at 45 sites from 14 and 13 provinces in Cambodia and Lao PDR respectively, and tested them for astroviruses. Our study revealed a high diversity of astroviruses among various Yangochiroptera and Yinpterochiroptera bats. Evidence for varying degrees of host restriction for astroviruses in bats was found. Furthermore, additional Pteropodid hosts were detected. The astroviruses formed distinct phylogenetic clusters within the genus Mamastrovirus, most closely related to other known bat astroviruses. The astrovirus sequences were found to be highly saturated indicating that phylogenetic relationships should be interpreted carefully. An astrovirus clustering in a group with other viruses from diverse hosts, including from ungulates and porcupines, was found in a Rousettus bat. These findings suggest that diverse astroviruses can be found in many species of mammals, including bats.

Distribution of bat-borne viruses and environment patterns

“…Bats were collected from 43 sites in Cambodia and Lao PDR between 2010 and 2013 as previously described (Lacroix et al, 2017a(Lacroix et al, , 2017b ( Supplementary Table 1; Fig. 1).…”

“…1). Sampling was conducted in two phases (Lacroix et al, 2017a(Lacroix et al, , 2017b. Phase 1 was performed in 2010 by the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia (IPC).…”

“…Viral RNA was extracted from rectal swabs, oral swabs and lung samples as previously described (Lacroix et al, 2017a(Lacroix et al, , 2017b ( Table 1). The detection was based on broadly reactive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays, following previously described procedures (Chu et al, 2008;Watanabe et al, 2010).…”

“…Coronaviruses belonging to alpha-CoV and beta-CoV, including MERS-like viruses have been recently detected in Cambodia and Lao bat populations (Lacroix et al, 2017a). Several other viral families have also been detected, including astroviruses, flaviviruses, lyssaviruses, bunyaviruses or henipaviruses (Salaün et al, 1974;Olson et al, 2002;Osborne et al, 2003;Reynes et al, 2004Reynes et al, , 2005Lacroix et al, 2017b).…”

Analysis and Applications of GlobeLand30: A Review

“…These include quantifying land use for each watershed in Panamanian drainage basins [55]; identifying types of sampling sites based on the hydrology and land-use characteristics to monitor contaminants in river sediments [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57], discriminating fire types from MODIS active fire products, such as forest fire, grassland fire, agricultural burning and so on [58]; assessing flooded arable land of a major flood in Myanmar [46]; selecting eddy-covariance flux towers with relatively homogenous land cover in the light use efficiency models to simulate GPP [59]; analyzing habitat of bats in Lao PDR and Cambodia [60][61][62]; and providing validation sources to evaluate the classification performance of the water body extraction from MODIS eight-day products [62]. In particular, GlobeLand30 data has been used to derive useful information about the status and change of land cover, to examine their causes and consequence analysis, and to explore future development scenarios.…”