Abstract
Bats have been recognized as an exceptional viral reservoir, especially for coronaviruses. At least three bat zoonotic coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2) have been shown to cause severe diseases in humans and it is expected more will emerge. One of the major features of CoVs is that they are all highly prone to recombination. An extreme example is the insertion of the P10 gene from reoviruses in the bat CoV GCCDC1, first discovered in Rousettus leschenaultii bats in China. Here, we report the detection of GCCDC1 in four different bat species (Eonycteris spelaea, Cynopterus sphinx, Rhinolophus shameli and Rousettus sp.) in Cambodia. This finding demonstrates a much broader geographic and bat species range for this virus and indicates common cross-species transmission. Interestingly, one of the bat samples showed a co-infection with an Alpha CoV most closely related to RsYN14, a virus recently discovered in the same genus (Rhinolophus) of bat in Yunnan, China, 2020. Taken together, our latest findings highlight the need to conduct active surveillance in bats to assess the risk of emerging CoVs, especially in Southeast Asia.
Highlights
Coronaviruses (CoV) have been known to infect humans for decades, but the severity of disease attributed to this group of viruses was only first realized when severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) emerged in 2002 [1,2]
We report the presence of multiple strains of the cross-family recombinant RoBatCoV GCCDC1 in Cambodian bats
The authenticity of GCCDC1 found in Cambodia is confirmed by the close genetic relationship with those found in China and Singapore, as well as the presence and sequence conservation of the reovirus p10 gene located between
Summary
Coronaviruses (CoV) have been known to infect humans for decades, but the severity of disease attributed to this group of viruses was only first realized when severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) emerged in 2002 [1,2]. Bats were found to be the reservoir host of SARS-CoV, with zoonotic transmission to humans occurring through palm civets, an intermediate host [3]. In 2012, a decade after the SARS-CoV outbreak, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged and this time the intermediate host was dromedary camels [4]. CoV outbreak began in 2019, when SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China [5,6]. Alpha and betacoronaviruses are known to infect humans and of the species currently classified in these genera, 54% are bat viruses [8]
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