Abstract
Bats are reservoirs for many different coronaviruses (CoVs) as well as many other important zoonotic viruses. We sampled feces and/or anal swabs of 1,044 insectivorous bats of 2 families and 17 species from 21 different locations within Colorado from 2007 to 2009. We detected alphacoronavirus RNA in bats of 4 species: big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus), 10% prevalence; long-legged bats (Myotis volans), 8% prevalence; little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus), 3% prevalence; and western long-eared bats (Myotis evotis), 2% prevalence. Overall, juvenile bats were twice as likely to be positive for CoV RNA as adult bats. At two of the rural sampling sites, CoV RNAs were detected in big brown and long-legged bats during the three sequential summers of this study. CoV RNA was detected in big brown bats in all five of the urban maternity roosts sampled throughout each of the periods tested. Individually tagged big brown bats that were positive for CoV RNA and later sampled again all became CoV RNA negative. Nucleotide sequences in the RdRp gene fell into 3 main clusters, all distinct from those of Old World bats. Similar nucleotide sequences were found in amplicons from gene 1b and the spike gene in both a big-brown and a long-legged bat, indicating that a CoV may be capable of infecting bats of different genera. These data suggest that ongoing evolution of CoVs in bats creates the possibility of a continued threat for emergence into hosts of other species. Alphacoronavirus RNA was detected at a high prevalence in big brown bats in roosts in close proximity to human habitations (10%) and known to have direct contact with people (19%), suggesting that significant potential opportunities exist for cross-species transmission of these viruses. Further CoV surveillance studies in bats throughout the Americas are warranted.
Highlights
Bats play important roles in maintaining and transmitting zoonotic viruses [1,2,3]
In 2006, we reported the first detection of alphacoronavirus RNA in feces of North American bats sampled in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado [17]
All cDNA samples collected from bats at rural sites or during were screened for CoV RNA by PCR with a pair of panCoV consensus primers [13] that amplify a highly conserved region (400 nucleotide amplicon) of the coronavirus RNAdependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene as previously described
Summary
More than 99 different viruses have been detected in and/or isolated from bats of diverse species [2] Rabies virus and other lyssaviruses infect bats of many species, and Old World fruit bats (family Pteropodidae) are reservoirs for both Hendra and Nipah viruses [4,5,6]. Two newly discovered human reoviruses, Melaka virus and Kampar virus, associated with influenza-like illnesses in humans, may be transmitted from small flying foxes (fruit bats; Pteropus hypomelanus) based on the close phylogenetic relationships of these viruses to Pulau virus, a bat reovirus [7,8]. Domestic animals, and birds, coronaviruses are common respiratory and enteric pathogens, and several CoVs. Health and Environment (CDPHE) that were negative for rabies viruses were sent to our laboratory for detection of CoV RNA. We describe a much larger and more comprehensive study of coronavirus prevalence, epizootiology, geographic distribution, and persistence, as well as preliminary phylogenetic analysis of CoV genome sequences in bats in Colorado
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