Identification of coronaviruses in bats and rodents in northern and central Argentina

Abstract

Due to the present pandemic situation and the many animal species that are epidemiologically involved, there has been a surge of renewed interest in investigating the coronavirus (CoV) population circulating in wildlife, especially bats and rodents, which are potential reservoirs of new human pathogens. In Argentina, information about the viruses present in these mammals is very limited. To investigate the presence of coronaviruses in this country, we obtained 457 samples from hematophagous, insectivorous, and frugivorous bats and rodents from two regions of Argentina. We report here the detection of alphacoronavirus sequences in three groups of bats as well as in rodents. Phylogenetic analysis showed the closest relationships to alphacoronaviruses from Brazil. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00705-023-05703-y.

Identification and characterization of novel alphacoronaviruses in Tadarida brasiliensis (Chiroptera, Molossidae) from Argentina: insights into recombination as a mechanism favoring bat coronavirus cross-species transmission

“…To date, coronavirus studies carried out on bats from Argentina have corresponded to surveillance campaigns based on the detection and sequencing of a conserved RdRp region ( 27 , 28 ). This strategy has been useful in exploring the presence, diversity, and phylogenetic relationships of coronaviruses circulating in some species of bats.…”

“…The novel genomes and protein-encoding genes (Spike and RdRp) were aligned with selected context sequences of representative species belonging to the family Coronaviridae (see Table S2 for accession numbers) using MAFFT v7.453 ( 26 ) and ClustalW algorithm v2.1. The RdRp gene data set was constructed with AlphaCoV partial sequences from Argentina ( n = 38) ( 27 , 28 ), the U.S. ( n = 143), and other countries ( n = 21). Sequences from Beta-, Gamma-, and DeltaCoV genera were included as outgroups ( n = 37).…”

Global Distribution and Molecular Evolution of Bat Coronaviruses

“…Another study on nine different frugivorous and insectivorous species in Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, and Brazil revealed that alpha and betaCoV RNA were detected in 50 of more than 1500 bats, indicating the wide distribution between different bat species [112]. In Argentina, alphacoronaviruses were detected by PCR in oral and fecal samples collected from hematophagous, insectivorous, and frugivorous bats [113].…”