Project description:BACKGROUND:Increasing molecular evidence supports that bats and/or their ectoparasites may harbor vector-borne bacteria, such as bartonellae and borreliae. However, the simultaneous occurrence of rickettsiae in bats and bat ticks has been poorly studied. METHODS:In this study, 54 bat carcasses and their infesting soft ticks (n = 67) were collected in Shihezi City, northwestern China. The heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, small intestine and large intestine of bats were dissected, followed by DNA extraction. Soft ticks were identified both morphologically and molecularly. All samples were examined for the presence of rickettsiae by amplifying four genetic markers (17-kDa, gltA, ompA and ompB). RESULTS:All bats were identified as Pipistrellus pipistrellus, and their ticks as Argas vespertilionis. Molecular analyses showed that DNA of Rickettsia parkeri, R. lusitaniae, R. slovaca and R. raoultii was present in bat organs/tissues. In addition, nine of the 67 bat soft ticks (13.43%) were positive for R. raoultii (n = 5) and R. rickettsii (n = 4). In the phylogenetic analysis, these bat-associated rickettsiae clustered together with conspecific sequences reported from other host and tick species, confirming the above results. CONCLUSIONS:To the best of our knowledge, DNA of R. parkeri, R. slovaca and R. raoultii was detected for the first time in bat organs/tissues. This is also the first molecular evidence for the presence of R. raoultii and R. rickettsii in bat ticks. To our knowledge, R. parkeri was not known to occur in Asia. Our results highlight the need to assess rickettsial agents in a broader range of bat species and associated tick species.
Project description:Increasing amounts of data indicate that bats harbor a higher viral diversity relative to other mammalian orders, and they have been recognized as potential reservoirs for pathogenic viruses, such as the Hendra, Nipah, Marburg, and SARS-CoV viruses. Here, we present the first viral metagenomic analysis of Pipistrellus pygmaeus from Uppsala, Sweden. Total RNA was extracted from the saliva and feces of individual bats and analyzed using Illumina sequencing. The results identified sequences related to 51 different viral families, including vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant viruses. These viral families include Coronaviridae, Picornaviridae, Dicistroviridae, Astroviridae, Hepeviridae, Reoviridae, Botourmiaviridae, Lispviridae, Totiviridae, Botoumiaviridae, Parvoviridae, Retroviridae, Adenoviridae, and Partitiviridae, as well as different unclassified viruses. We further characterized three near full-length genome sequences of bat coronaviruses. A phylogenetic analysis showed that these belonged to alphacoronaviruses with the closest similarity (78-99% at the protein level) to Danish and Finnish bat coronaviruses detected in Pipistrellus and Myotis bats. In addition, the full-length and the near full-length genomes of picornavirus were characterized. These showed the closest similarity (88-94% at the protein level) to bat picornaviruses identified in Chinese bats. Altogether, the results of this study show that Swedish Pipistrellus bats harbor a great diversity of viruses, some of which are closely related to mammalian viruses. This study expands our knowledge on the bat population virome and improves our understanding of the evolution and transmission of viruses among bats and to other species.