Project description:Background: Coevolution between pathogens and their hosts decreases host morbidity and mortality. Bats can tolerate viruses which can be lethal to other vertebrate orders, including humans. Bat adaptations to infection include localized immune response, early pathogen sensing, high interferon expression without pathogen stimulation, and regulated inflammatory response. The immune reaction is costly, and bats suppress high-cost metabolism during torpor. In the temperate zone, bats hibernate in winter, utilizing a specific behavioural adaptation to survive detrimental environmental conditions and lack of energy resources. Hibernation torpor involves major physiological changes that pose an additional challenge to bat-pathogen coexistence. Here, we compared bat cellular reaction to viral challenge under conditions simulating hibernation, evaluating the changes between torpor and euthermia. Results: We infected the olfactory nerve-derived cell culture of Myotis myotis with an endemic bat pathogen, European bat lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1). After infection, the bat cells were cultivated at two different temperatures – 37 ◦ C and 5 ◦ C - to examine the cell response during conditions simulating euthermia and torpor, respectively. The mRNA isolated from the cells was sequenced and analysed for differential gene expression attributable to the temperature and/or infection treatment. In conditions simulating euthermia, infected bat cells produce an excess signalling by multitude of pathways involved in apoptosis and immune regulation influencing proliferation of regulatory cell types which can, in synergy with other produced cytokines, contribute to viral tolerance. We found no up- or downregulated genes expressed in infected cells cultivated at conditions simulating torpor compared to non-infected cells cultivated under the same conditions. When studying the reaction of uninfected cells to the temperature treatment, bat cells show an increased production of heat shock proteins (HSPs) with chaperone activity, improving the bat’s ability to repair molecular structures damaged due to the stress related to the temperature change. Conclusions: The lack of bat cell reaction to infection in conditions simulating hibernation may contribute to the virus tolerance or persistence in bats. Together with the cell damage repair mechanisms induced in response to hibernation, the immune regulation may promote bats’ ability to act as reservoirs of zoonotic viruses such as lyssaviruses.
Project description:Data from the VLA lyssavirus genotyping microarray. The array platform for this data is GEO accession GPL8066, and consists of 624 oligos representing two viral families. The data set itself consists of 14 arrays, 7 hybridised with RNA from mice brains infected with 7 genotypes of lyssaviruses, 1 hybridised with RNA from normal mouse brain, and 6 hybridised with RNA from coded samples consisting of infected mouse brains or control mouse brains. Keywords: Lyssavirus genotyping microarray
Project description:Data from the VLA lyssavirus genotyping microarray. The array platform for this data is GEO accession GPL8066, and consists of 624 oligos representing two viral families. The data set itself consists of 14 arrays, 7 hybridised with RNA from mice brains infected with 7 genotypes of lyssaviruses, 1 hybridised with RNA from normal mouse brain, and 6 hybridised with RNA from coded samples consisting of infected mouse brains or control mouse brains. Keywords: Lyssavirus genotyping microarray Data from the VLA lyssavirus genotyping microarray. The array platform for this data is GEO accession GPL8066, and consists of 624 oligos representing two viral families. The data set itself consists of 14 arrays, 7 hybridised with RNA from mice brains infected with 7 genotypes of lyssaviruses, 1 hybridised with RNA from normal mouse brain, and 6 hybridised with RNA from coded samples consisting of infected mouse brains or control mouse brains. Statistical analysis of the data was done with DetectiV software (Watson et al., 2007). The median and array methods of normalization were used in the statistical analysis of the results. In the median method, DetectiV software calculates the mean fluorescence for each set of probes and normalised against background fluorescence of all probes, assuming that most probes are not hybridized. The array method utilizes an entire control array, e.g. RNA from a known uninfected animal, as the negative control and all probe values are divided by their respective elements from the control array.
Project description:A new tentative lyssavirus, Lleida bat lyssavirus, was found in a bent-winged bat (Miniopterus schreibersii) in Spain. It does not belong to phylogroups I or II, and it seems to be more closely related to the West Causasian bat virus, and especially to the Ikoma lyssavirus.
Project description:There is a growing diversity of bat-associated lyssaviruses in the Old World. In August 2017, a dead Brandt's bat (Myotis brandtii) tested positive for rabies and based on partial sequence analysis, the novel Kotalahti bat lyssavirus (KBLV) was identified. Because the bat was in an autolyzed state, isolation of KBLV was neither successful after three consecutive cell passages on cells nor in mice. Next generation sequencing (NGS) was applied using Ion Torrent ™ S5 technology coupled with target enrichment via hybridization-based capture (myBaits®) was used to sequence 99% of the genome, comprising of 11,878 nucleotides (nt). KBLV is most closely related to EBLV-2 (78.7% identity), followed by KHUV (79.0%) and BBLV (77.6%), supporting the assignment as phylogroup I lyssavirus. Interestingly, all of these lyssaviruses were also isolated from bat species of the genus Myotis, thus supporting that M. brandtii is likely the reservoir host. All information on antigenic and genetic divergence fulfil the species demarcation criteria by ICTV, so that we recommend KBLV as a novel species within the Lyssavirus genus. Next to sequence analyses, assignment to phylogroup I was functionally corroborated by cross-neutralization of G-deleted RABV, pseudotyped with KBLV-G by sera from RABV vaccinated humans. This suggests that conventional RABV vaccines also confer protection against the novel KBLV.