Epidemiological Investigation Of Bat Viruses In Macau

Chiropteran is the second major animal population in the member of beats,the unique mammal possessing flyability,and has the evolution history over 50 million years.Bat species known in the world is nearly 1200 which widely distribute all over the world.Bats are regarded as the natural reservoir of many zoonotic viruses.Up to now,more than 180 viruses were detected and isolated from bat samples,including the epidemic viruses that may trigger severe symptoms in Human.Although there are epidemic investigations about the samples collected from our country,complete and systematic research is still absent.Macau as an international metropolis has diversity of demographics.If there were not effective measures for zoonotic virus prevention,the situation would be out of control.So,it is necessary for us to master distribution of bat species of Macau and viruses they carry,as it will help us to understand the natural species of virus,and provide us with theoretical basis about control and prevention of bat-borne viruses.The pre-investigate were launched before our sample collection for two years,discrete collection of every bat roost in Macau lasted 14 months,1002 intestinal samples and 2 urine samples were collected.the results of epidemical investigation are presented below:We detected 50 coronavirus sequences,2 paramyxovirus sequences,22 adenovirus sequences through PCR detection technology,most of them share high consistency of nucleotide identity.207 specimens were detected for hepatitis A virus,hepatitis E virus.and Hantan virus,however,all test results were negative.Further investigation found that infection rate of some viruses related to season.Coronaviruses have a relative high infection rate detected from Miniopterus schreibersii in summer,Myotis ricketti specimens positive for coronavirus and adenovirus only detected in July 2015.Co-infection of coronavirus and adenovirus were ubiquitous in the Myotis ricketti samples collected in summer.A feces sample which originally considered as Hipposideros armiger was confirmed as Eonycteris spelaea sample through Cytochrome b species identification.10 complete Spike(S)gene and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase(RdRp)gene of coronavirus were obtained by RT-PCR technology.phylogenetic analysis of S gene shows a close genetic relationship between BtCoV1 A from Miniopterus schreibersii and BtCoV1 A from Rhinolophus pusillus.nucleotide and protein similarity analysis show BtCoV HKU4 related sequences share higher consistency with MERS-CoV in S gene,HKU5 in RdRp gene.Complete genome of a BtCoV HKU4 related strain was obtained via high-throughput sequencing(HTS)technologies.Each main gene possesses high nucleotide identity with known bat viruses.Time tree constructed in this study were used for further expound of evolutionary distance of lineage C,it suggests that more bat-born zoonotic viruses remain to be discovered and understood.