Bat coronaviruses and experimental infection of bats, the Philippines.
Fifty-two bats captured during July 2008 in the Philippines were tested by reverse transcription-PCR to detect bat coronavirus (CoV) RNA. The overall prevalence of virus RNA was 55.8%. We found 2 groups of sequences that belonged to group 1 (genus Alphacoronavirus) and group 2 (genus Betacoronavirus) CoVs. Phylogenetic analysis of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene showed that groups 1 and 2 CoVs were similar to Bat-CoV/China/A515/2005 (95% nt sequence identity) and Bat-CoV/HKU9-1/China/2007 (83% identity), respectively. To propagate group 2 CoVs obtained from a lesser dog-faced fruit bat (Cynopterus brachyotis), we administered intestine samples orally to Leschenault rousette bats (Rousettus leschenaulti) maintained in our laboratory. After virus replication in the bats was confirmed, an additional passage of the virus was made in Leschenault rousette bats, and bat pathogenesis was investigated. Fruit bats infected with virus did not show clinical signs of infection.
Watanabe
Shumpei
S
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Masangkay
Joseph S
JS
Nagata
Noriyo
N
Morikawa
Shigeru
S
Mizutani
Tetsuya
T
Fukushi
Shuetsu
S
Alviola
Phillip
P
Omatsu
Tsutomu
T
Ueda
Naoya
N
Iha
Koichiro
K
Taniguchi
Satoshi
S
Fujii
Hikaru
H
Tsuda
Shumpei
S
Endoh
Maiko
M
Kato
Kentaro
K
Tohya
Yukinobu
Y
Kyuwa
Shigeru
S
Yoshikawa
Yasuhiro
Y
Akashi
Hiroomi
H
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000821:virology*; D017934:Coronavirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D018352:Coronavirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000276:immunology / Q000662:veterinary*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010679:Philippines / Q000453:epidemiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D012324:RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000662:veterinary; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D012367:RNA, Viral; D012324:RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase