Abstract
Although there have been documented Ebola virus disease outbreaks for more than 40 years, the natural reservoir host has not been identified. Recent studies provide evidence that the Angolan free-tailed bat (Mops condylurus), an insectivorous microbat, is a possible ebolavirus reservoir. To investigate the potential role of this bat species in the ecology of ebolaviruses, replication, tolerance, and persistence of Ebola virus (EBOV) were investigated in 10 different primary bat cell isolates from M. condylurus. Varying EBOV replication kinetics corresponded to the expression levels of the integral membrane protein NPC1. All primary cells were highly tolerant to EBOV infection without cytopathic effects. The observed persistent EBOV infection for 150 days in lung primary cells, without resultant selective pressure leading to virus mutation, indicate the intrinsic ability of EBOV to persist in this bat species. These results provide further evidence for this bat species to be a likely reservoir of ebolaviruses.
Highlights
Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus are genera within the family Filoviridae in the order of Mononegavirales [1]
HEK293∆Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) and MoLi Prim cells were refractory to Ebola virus (EBOV) infection; no virus replication was detectable within the first 96 hpi
Maintenance of a virus within its natural reservoir requires its persistence in the animal population and/or in individual animals, its tolerance by the host, and its replication to high enough levels to allow for transmission to naïve animals
Summary
Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus are genera within the family Filoviridae in the order of Mononegavirales [1]. Six species within the Ebolavirus genus have been discovered: Zaire, Sudan, Taï Forest, Bundibugyo, Reston and, most recently, Bombali ebolavirus. Of these six species, only four viruses (Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Taï Forest virus, and Bundibugyo virus) are known to cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans with case fatality rates up to 90% [1,2,3]. Since 1976, 29 ebolavirus outbreaks have been documented in Africa. Various species of wild-caught bats have tested seroreactive for EBOV, with antibodies being detected in 307 individual bats from 17 species in Africa and Asia [5,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
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