title: Microbiome analysis reveals the abundance of bacterial pathogens in Rousettus leschenaultii guano.
abstract: Bats are crucial for proper functioning of an ecosystem. They provide various important services to ecosystem and environment. While, bats are well-known carrier of pathogenic viruses, their possible role as a potential carrier of pathogenic bacteria is under-explored. Here, using culture-based approach, employing multiple bacteriological media, over thousand bacteria were cultivated and identified from Rousettus leschenaultii (a frugivorous bat species), the majority of which were from the family Enterobacteriaceae and putative pathogens. Next, pathogenic potential of most frequently cultivated component of microbiome i.e. Escherichia coli was assessed to identify its known pathotypes which revealed the presence of virulent factors in many cultivated E. coli isolates. Applying in-depth bacterial community analysis using high-throughput 16 S rRNA gene sequencing, a high inter-individual variation was observed among the studied guano samples. Interestingly, a higher diversity of bacterial communities was observed in decaying guano representative. The search against human pathogenic bacteria database at 97% identity, a small proportion of sequences were found associated to well-known human pathogens. The present study thus indicates that this bat species may carry potential bacterial pathogens and advice to study the effect of these pathogens on bats itself and the probable mode of transmission to humans and other animals.
authors.affiliation: Microbial Culture Collection, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India.
authors.forename: Sunil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banskar
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India.
authors.forename: Shrikant S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Bhute
authors.affiliation: Microbial Culture Collection, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India.
authors.forename: Mangesh V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Suryavanshi
authors.affiliation: Biosphere, Eshwari, 52/403, Lakshminagar, Parvati, Pune-411009 (Maharashtra), India.
authors.forename: Sachin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Punekar
authors.affiliation: Microbial Culture Collection, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India.
authors.forename: Yogesh S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Shouche
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000382:microbiology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004755:Enterobacteriaceae / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity; D006801:Humans; D064307:Microbiota; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014774:Virulence / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S