Experimental rabies infection in haematophagous bats <i>Desmodus rotundus</i>

Almeida, Marilene Fernandes de; Martorelli, Luzia Fátima Alves; Aires, Caroline C.; Sallum, Paulo César; Durigon, Edison Luíz; Massad, Eduardo

doi:10.1017/s0950268804003656

Cited by 47 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Similarly high seroprevalence to rabies virus in other bat species suggests that frequent survival after exposure may be a general feature of bat rabies (29). The apparent rarity of lethal infection following natural exposures calls into question the infection dynamics and pathology observed in experimental challenge studies, which often generate 50-90% mortality using high inoculation doses (20,24,30), and suggests that rabies virus may not be as markedly exceptional among bat-borne viral zoonoses in having high virulence in its natural host as previously believed (1,3). The impact of more realistic lower challenge doses on within-host dynamics, such as incubation and infectious periods, remains an important unknown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notably, this dataset is the most spatially and temporally complete record of rabies exposure patterns ever collected for any bat species Parameter Estimation from the Field Data. For each model, we estimated the parameters in θ = ðβ N , β R , α, ϕÞ, and imposed the restrictions that 0:05 ≤ α ≤ 0:85 as suggested by current estimates (20,24,30) and 0 < R 0 ≤ 3. After implementing fully stochastic versions of our models using the τ-leap method (an approximation to Gillespie's algorithm) we used particle filtering, implemented from the partially observed Markov processes (POMP) 0.36-1 package of the statistical computing language R (25,33), to perform a grid search over all parameters in θ to compute the log likelihood at each point.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resolving the roles of immunity, pathogenesis, and immigration for rabies persistence in vampire bats

Blackwood

Streicker

Altizer

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

165

192

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Bats are important reservoirs for emerging infectious diseases, yet the mechanisms that allow highly virulent pathogens to persist within bat populations remain obscure. In Latin America, vampirebat-transmitted rabies virus represents a key example of how such uncertainty can impede efforts to prevent cross-species transmission. Despite decades of agricultural and human health losses, control efforts have had limited success. To establish persistence mechanisms of vampire-bat-transmitted rabies virus in Latin America, we use data from a spatially replicated, longitudinal field study of vampire bats in Peru to parameterize a series of mechanistic transmission models. We find that single-colony persistence cannot occur. Instead, dispersal of bats between colonies, combined with a high frequency of immunizing nonlethal infections, is necessary to maintain rabies virus at levels consistent with field observations. Simulations show that the strong spatial component to transmission dynamics could explain the failure of bat culls to eliminate rabies and suggests that geographic coordination of control efforts might reduce transmission to humans and domestic animals. These findings offer spatial dynamics as a mechanism for rabies persistence in bats that might be important for the understanding and control of other bat-borne pathogens.Desmodus rotundus | zoonotic disease | host-pathogen dynamics | spatial processes | wildlife culling

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving the roles of immunity, pathogenesis, and immigration for rabies persistence in vampire bats

Blackwood

Streicker

Altizer

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

165

192

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Moreover, serological and viral nucleic acid sequencing data in African and Asian bats of the Rhinolophidae and Vespertilionidae families suggest infections with bunyaviruses of the Nairovirus and Hantavirus genera (11)(12)(13). However, most of these pathogens, with the exception of rabies virus and bat lyssaviruses (6,14), seem to be under strong host control, as they do not cause obvious disease in bats (15). Therefore, the innate immune response may contribute to early control of these viruses (16), preventing disease but eventually allowing viral persistence and shedding.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution and Antiviral Specificities of Interferon-Induced Mx Proteins of Bats against Ebola, Influenza, and Other RNA Viruses

Fuchs

Hölzer

Schilling

et al. 2017

J Virol

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Bats serve as a reservoir for various, often zoonotic viruses, including significant human pathogens such as Ebola and influenza viruses. However, for unknown reasons, viral infections rarely cause clinical symptoms in bats. A tight control of viral replication by the host innate immune defense might contribute to this phenomenon. Transcriptomic studies revealed the presence of the interferon-induced antiviral myxovirus resistance (Mx) proteins in bats, but detailed functional aspects have not been assessed. To provide evidence that bat Mx proteins might act as key factors to control viral replication we cloned Mx1 cDNAs from three bat families, Pteropodidae, Phyllostomidae, and Vespertilionidae. Phylogenetically these bat Mx1 genes cluster closely with their human ortholog MxA. Using transfected cell cultures, minireplicon systems, virus-like particles, and virus infections, we determined the antiviral potential of the bat Mx1 proteins. Bat Mx1 significantly reduced the polymerase activity of viruses circulating in bats, including Ebola and influenza A-like viruses. The related Thogoto virus, however, which is not known to infect bats, was not inhibited by bat Mx1. Further, we provide evidence for positive selection in bat Mx1 genes that might explain species-specific antiviral activities of these proteins. Together, our data suggest a role for Mx1 in controlling these viruses in their bat hosts.IMPORTANCE Bats are a natural reservoir for various viruses that rarely cause clinical symptoms in bats but are dangerous zoonotic pathogens, like Ebola or rabies virus. It has been hypothesized that the interferon system might play a key role in controlling viral replication in bats. We speculate that the interferon-induced Mx proteins might be key antiviral factors of bats and have coevolved with bat-borne viruses. This study evaluated for the first time a large set of bat Mx1 proteins spanning three major bat families for their antiviral potential, including activity against Ebola virus and bat influenza A-like virus, and we describe here their phylogenetic relationship, revealing patterns of positive selection that suggest a coevolution with viral pathogens. By understanding the molecular mechanisms of the innate resistance of bats against viral diseases, we might gain important insights into how to prevent and fight human zoonotic infections caused by bat-borne viruses.KEYWORDS Mx protein, bat, bunyavirus, Ebola virus, influenza, interferons, orthomyxovirus, vesicular stomatitis virus

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“…Most of the known bat viruses have been discovered in apparently healthy bats (10,14,19,20,26,34,49). When bats are experimentally infected with henipavirus or the rabies virus, the bats shed the virus but do not produce any clinical syndrome like those observed in other animals and humans (1,17,30,40). This phenomenon may be due to the adaption of viruses to their host species, preinfection with related nonpathogenic viruses, or some unique characteristics of the bat immune system to viral infection.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metagenomic Analysis of Viruses from Bat Fecal Samples Reveals Many Novel Viruses in Insectivorous Bats in China

Yang

et al. 2012

J Virol

199

183

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bIncreasing data indicate that bats harbor diverse viruses, some of which cause severe human diseases. In this study, sequenceindependent amplification and high-throughput sequencing (Solexa) were applied to the metagenomic analysis of viruses in bat fecal samples collected from 6 locations in China. A total of 8,746,417 reads with a length of 306,124,595 bp were obtained. Among these reads, 13,541 (0.15%) had similarity to phage sequences and 9,170 (0.1%) had similarity to eukaryotic virus sequences. A total of 129 assembled contigs (>100 nucleotides) were constructed and compared with GenBank: 32 contigs were related to phages, and 97 were related to eukaryotic viruses. The most frequent reads and contigs related to eukaryotic viruses were homologous to densoviruses, dicistroviruses, coronaviruses, parvoviruses, and tobamoviruses, a range that includes viruses from invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. Most of the contigs had low identities to known viral genomic or protein sequences, suggesting that a large number of novel and genetically diverse insect viruses as well as putative mammalian viruses are transmitted by bats in China. This study provides the first preliminary understanding of the virome of some bat populations in China, which may guide the discovery and isolation of novel viruses in the future. Bats, the only flying mammal and the second most diverse group of mammals, are natural reservoirs of many emerging viruses (7, 38). Some bat viruses cause severe human diseases, such as lyssavirus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, Ebola virus, and Marburg virus (16,23,29,41,47). Most of the known bat viruses have been discovered in apparently healthy bats (10,14,19,20,26,34,49). When bats are experimentally infected with henipavirus or the rabies virus, the bats shed the virus but do not produce any clinical syndrome like those observed in other animals and humans (1,17,30,40). This phenomenon may be due to the adaption of viruses to their host species, preinfection with related nonpathogenic viruses, or some unique characteristics of the bat immune system to viral infection. Considering the species richness and wide geographic distribution of bats, bats may be a source of many additional unknown viruses.The techniques for isolating viruses are straightforward but are not always successful because the majority of viruses are unable to grow in cell culture due to a lack of susceptible cell lines, a low titer of virus, or toxicity of environmental samples. PCR assays are sequence-dependent and extremely sensitive and rapid but have been complicated by the lack of a universally conserved gene or gene marker for all types of viruses. Recently, the sequence-independent amplification of viral nucleic acids followed by shotgun sequencing or pyrosequencing has been used to discover an enormous diversity of virus species and genotypes in marine and fresh water (2,6,12,37,39,45), human feces (3, 5, 43), animal tissues, and bat feces (11,13,24,32,42).In this study, six bat fecal samples were collected from six locations...

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Experimental rabies infection in haematophagous bats Desmodus rotundus

Cited by 47 publications

References 21 publications

Resolving the roles of immunity, pathogenesis, and immigration for rabies persistence in vampire bats

Resolving the roles of immunity, pathogenesis, and immigration for rabies persistence in vampire bats

Evolution and Antiviral Specificities of Interferon-Induced Mx Proteins of Bats against Ebola, Influenza, and Other RNA Viruses

Metagenomic Analysis of Viruses from Bat Fecal Samples Reveals Many Novel Viruses in Insectivorous Bats in China

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