Serologic Evidence of Fruit Bat Exposure to Filoviruses, Singapore, 2011–2016

Laing, Eric D; Mendenhall, Ian H.; Linster, Martin; Low, Dolyce H. W.; Chen, Yihui; Yan, Lianying; Sterling, Spencer L; Borthwick, Sophie A.; Neves, Erica Sena; Lim, Julia S.L.; Skiles, Maggie M.; Lee, Benjamin P. Y.‐H.; Wang, Lin‐Fa; Broder, Christopher C.; Smith, Gavin

doi:10.3201/eid2401.170401

Cited by 40 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…Recently, partial genomes of unidentified filoviruses were detected in fruit bats in China [23]. IgG antibodies specific to African ebolaviruses such as EBOV were also detected in orangutans in Indonesia and fruit bats in Bangladesh [19,24], while IgG antibodies to EBOV, SUDV, TAFV, and BDBV were recently found in fruit bats in Singapore [25]. These accumulated data on the filovirus ecology suggest that filoviruses are more divergent and widely distributed than currently assumed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Seroprevalence of Filovirus Infection of Rousettus aegyptiacus Bats in Zambia

Changula

Kajihara

Mori-Kajihara

et al. 2018

The Journal of Infectious Diseases

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Bats are suspected to play important roles in the ecology of filoviruses, including ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. A cave-dwelling fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, has been shown to be a reservoir of marburgviruses. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with the viral glycoprotein antigen, we detected immunoglobulin G antibodies specific to multiple filoviruses in 158 of 290 serum samples of R aegyptiacus bats captured in Zambia during the years 2014-2017. In particular, 43.8% of the bats were seropositive to marburgvirus, supporting the notion that this bat species continuously maintains marburgviruses as a reservoir. Of note, distinct peaks of seropositive rates were repeatedly observed at the beginning of rainy seasons, suggesting seasonality of the presence of newly infected individuals in this bat population. These data highlight the need for continued monitoring of filovirus infection in this bat species even in countries where filovirus diseases have not been reported.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Seroprevalence of Filovirus Infection of Rousettus aegyptiacus Bats in Zambia

Changula

Kajihara

Mori-Kajihara

et al. 2018

The Journal of Infectious Diseases

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“…We employed infectious-based filovirus antigens, rather than recombinant virus protein antigens, as a strategy to increase both the sensitivity (i.e., ability of the filovirus IgG indirect ELISA system to correctly identify those with past exposure to a filovirus as filovirus IgG antibody positive) and specificity (i.e., ability of the filovirus IgG indirect ELISA system to correctly identify those with no past exposure to a filovirus as filovirus IgG antibody negative) of the system. Although recombinant filovirus antigens can be generated in large quantities and do not require a BSL-4 laboratory for production, the use of single recombinant virus proteins for antibody detection can lead to false negative results if an individual's antibody repertoire is not directed against the particular recombinant virus protein that was employed 23,[26][27][28][29][30][31] . Alternatively, false positive serological results can occur when recombinant virus antigens unknowingly share similar epitopes with other virus antigens for which the study population possesses antibodies against 45,46 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using filovirus-specific antisera collected from bats that were prime-boosted at the same time not only allowed us to thoroughly examine the level of serological cross-reactivity between the virus-specific antisera and heterologous filovirus antigen, but also provided the opportunity to use this knowledge to evaluate previously published ebolavirus serosurveys of bats [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] . Four out of the 11 previously published ebolavirus serosurveys of bats used Ebola virus antigen only to detect ebolavirus IgG antibodies 22,[24][25][26] and another four of these serosurveys used Ebola and Reston antigens only to detect ebolavirus IgG antibodies 23,[27][28][29] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, infectious virus was not isolated from any of these species 22,23 , indicating that they are either dead-end virus hosts, had cleared virus infection prior to sampling, or that current filovirus isolation techniques lack the sensitivity to recover infectious virus from specimens with low viral loads. Serological reactivity of bat sera with ebolavirus antigens using indirect ELISAs, indirect fluorescent tests, bead-based multiplex assays and/or western blots has been reported in 375 bats representing at least 21 species throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] . However, interpretation of this data has been exceedingly difficult due to multiple reasons that include: (1) the absence of a panel of positive and negative bat sera for initial serological assay validation and continuing quality control, (2) the use of various uncharacterized recombinant filovirus antigens, and (3) the application of different statistical methods for establishing cutoff values for seropositivity.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Comparative analysis of serologic cross-reactivity using convalescent sera from filovirus-experimentally infected fruit bats

Schuh

Amman

Sealy

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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With the exception of Reston and Bombali viruses, the marburgviruses and ebolaviruses (family Filoviridae ) cause outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fever in sub-Saharan Africa. The Egyptian rousette bat (ERB) is a natural reservoir host for the marburgviruses and evidence suggests that bats are also natural reservoirs for the ebolaviruses. Although the search for the natural reservoirs of the ebolaviruses has largely involved serosurveillance of the bat population, there are no validated serological assays to screen bat sera for ebolavirus-specific IgG antibodies. Here, we generate filovirus-specific antisera by prime-boost immunization of groups of captive ERBs with all seven known culturable filoviruses. After validating a system of filovirus-specific indirect ELISAs utilizing infectious-based virus antigens for detection of virus-specific IgG antibodies from bat sera, we assess the level of serological cross-reactivity between the virus-specific antisera and heterologous filovirus antigens. This data is then used to generate a filovirus antibody fingerprint that can predict which of the filovirus species in the system is most antigenically similar to the species responsible for past infection. Our filovirus IgG indirect ELISA system will be a critical tool for identifying bat species with high ebolavirus seroprevalence rates to target for longitudinal studies aimed at establishing natural reservoir host-ebolavirus relationships.

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“…This species has been associated with pollination of durian and other fruits of both cultural and economic importance throughout Asia [ 18 ]. Additionally, this species has been identified as a carrier of orthoreoviruses, Lyssa virus, filoviruses, flavivirus, coronaviruses, and astroviruses [ 19–26 ]. The spread and abundance of this species make it an ideal subject for research purposes.…”

Section: Data Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the genome and transcriptome of the cave nectar bat Eonycteris spelaea with PacBio long-read sequencing

Wen

Zhu

et al. 2018

GigaScience

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BackgroundIn the past two decades, bats have emerged as an important model system to study host-pathogen interactions. More recently, it has been shown that bats may also serve as a new and excellent model to study aging, inflammation, and cancer, among other important biological processes. The cave nectar bat or lesser dawn bat (Eonycteris spelaea) is known to be a reservoir for several viruses and intracellular bacteria. It is widely distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics from India to Southeast Asia and pollinates several plant species, including the culturally and economically important durian in the region. Here, we report the whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing, followed by subsequent de novo assembly, of the E. spelaea genome solely using the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) long-read sequencing platform.FindingsThe newly assembled E. spelaea genome is 1.97 Gb in length and consists of 4,470 sequences with a contig N50 of 8.0 Mb. Identified repeat elements covered 34.65% of the genome, and 20,640 unique protein-coding genes with 39,526 transcripts were annotated.ConclusionsWe demonstrated that the PacBio long-read sequencing platform alone is sufficient to generate a comprehensive de novo assembled genome and transcriptome of an important bat species. These results will provide useful insights and act as a resource to expand our understanding of bat evolution, ecology, physiology, immunology, viral infection, and transmission dynamics.

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Serologic Evidence of Fruit Bat Exposure to Filoviruses, Singapore, 2011–2016

Cited by 40 publications

References 17 publications

Seroprevalence of Filovirus Infection of Rousettus aegyptiacus Bats in Zambia

Seroprevalence of Filovirus Infection of Rousettus aegyptiacus Bats in Zambia

Comparative analysis of serologic cross-reactivity using convalescent sera from filovirus-experimentally infected fruit bats

Exploring the genome and transcriptome of the cave nectar bat Eonycteris spelaea with PacBio long-read sequencing

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