Metagenomic study of the viruses of African straw-coloured fruit bats: Detection of a chiropteran poxvirus and isolation of a novel adenovirus

Abstract

Viral emergence as a result of zoonotic transmission constitutes a continuous public health threat. Emerging viruses such as SARS coronavirus, hantaviruses and henipaviruses have wildlife reservoirs. Characterising the viruses of candidate reservoir species in geographical hot spots for viral emergence is a sensible approach to develop tools to predict, prevent, or contain emergence events. Here, we explore the viruses of Eidolon helvum, an Old World fruit bat species widely distributed in Africa that lives in close proximity to humans. We identified a great abundance and diversity of novel herpes and papillomaviruses, described the isolation of a novel adenovirus, and detected, for the first time, sequences of a chiropteran poxvirus closely related with Molluscum contagiosum. In sum, E. helvum display a wide variety of mammalian viruses, some of them genetically similar to known human pathogens, highlighting the possibility of zoonotic transmission.

Case-Control Comparison of Enteric Viromes in Captive Rhesus Macaques with Acute or Idiopathic Chronic Diarrhea

“…Another parvovirus detected here was closely related to a recently described member of the genus Protoparvovirus found in fecal samples of rhesus macaques with SIV enteropathy and in the sera of animals with advanced simian AIDS (SAIDS) (15). Other parvoviruses were less closely related to genomes already described, including a bocavirus and several members of a newly proposed Parvoviridae genus named Chapparvovirus (33,(48)(49)(50). Unexpectedly the distribution of reads for bocavirus and erythroparvovirus were positively associated with healthy animals relative to diarrheic animals.…”

Metagenomic analysis of the shrew enteric virome reveals novel viruses related to human stool-associated viruses

“…The advent of highthroughput sequencing technology has enabled comprehensive approaches for the simultaneous detection of many viral genomes and the identification of unknown viral genomes without viral isolation (Firth & Lipkin, 2013). Using high-throughput sequencing, viral metagenomics approaches have elucidated whole enteric viromes, resulting in the discovery of unknown viruses in a variety of mammals, including non-human primates, bats, pigs, rodents, cats, sea lions, martens, badgers, foxes, ferrets and pigeons (Baker et al, 2013;Bodewes et al, 2013;Dacheux et al, 2014;Donaldson et al, 2010;Ge et al, 2012;Handley et al, 2012;Li et al, 2010bLi et al, , 2011bNg et al, 2014;Phan et al, 2011Phan et al, , 2013aShan et al, 2011;Smits et al, 2013a;van den Brand et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2012). Further molecular characterization has revealed high nucleotide sequence diversity and unique genome organization of novel viruses (Boros et al, , 2013Li et al, 2010a;Phan et al, 2013b;Sauvage et al, 2012).…”

Isolation of multiple novel paramyxoviruses from pteropid bat urine

“…Detection of viral nucleic acid by PCR to identify viruses in bats represents the most common method employed in published studies. Several groups have also used nextgeneration sequencing platforms to identify most, if not all, of the viruses in a target species of bat, termed the 'bat virome' (Anthony et al, 2013;Baker et al, 2013a;Donaldson et al, 2010;Ge et al, 2012;Li et al, 2010). However, determining the zoonotic and pathogenic potential of these agents is very difficult based on sequence information alone.…”