Detection of Alphacoronavirus vRNA in the Feces of Brazilian Free-Tailed Bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) from a Colony in Florida, USA.

Tania Bonny,Jeffery Gore,John Lednicky,Carolyn Enloe,John Morris,Julia Loeb,Lisa Smith,Chang-Yu Wu,John Driver,Marco Salemi,Lisa Shender,Taylor Paisie,Kevin Oxenrider

doi:10.3390/diseases5010007

Abstract

Bats are natural reservoirs of coronaviruses and other viruses with zoonotic potential. Florida has indigenous non-migratory populations of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) that mostly roost in colonies in artificial structures. Unlike their counterparts in Brazil and Mexico, the viruses harbored by the Florida bats have been underexplored. We report the detection of an alphacoronavirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene sequence in the feces of two of 19 different T. brasiliensis that were capture/release bats that had been evaluated for overall health. The RdRp sequence is similar but not identical to previously detected sequences in the feces of two different species of bats (T. brasiliensis and Molossus molossus) in Brazil. In common with the experience of others doing similar work, attempts to isolate the virus in cell cultures were unsuccessful. We surmise that this and highly related alphacoronavirus are carried by Brazilian free-tailed bats living in a wide eco-spatial region. As various coronaviruses (CoVs) that affect humans emerged from bats, our study raises the question whether CoVs such as the one detected in our work are yet-to-be-detected pathogens of humans and animals other than bats.

Highlights

IntroductionBats (order Chiroptera, suborders Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera) are a widely distributed group of mammals that comprise ~20% of all known mammalian species [1]
Bats are a widely distributed group of mammals that comprise ~20% of all known mammalian species [1]
Coronavirus RNAs were not detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of spent cell culture media collected and tested by Reverse Transcriptase (RT)-PCR every five days, and in RNA purified from the infected cells at the terminal observation time-point (30 days post-infection)

Summary

Introduction

Bats (order Chiroptera, suborders Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera) are a widely distributed group of mammals that comprise ~20% of all known mammalian species [1] They are reservoirs of many emerging and reemerging zoonotic viruses, some of which are highly pathogenic in humans. The emerging viruses exert a significant public health threat [2,3] and include ebolaviruses, henipaviruses, lyssaviruses and coronaviruses [4,5,6,7,8,9] These are all viruses that can cause infections through inhalation routes of exposure, and viruses such as Hendra, Nipah, and SARS viruses cause severe respiratory infections in humans. After it was found that SARS-CoV probably originated in bats [11,12], a flurry of investigations uncovered many more novel bat

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