TY - JOUR
T1 - Detection of coronaviruses in insectivorous bats of Fore-Caucasus, 2021
AU - Popov, Igor V.
AU - Ohlopkova, Olesia V.
AU - Donnik, Irina M.
AU - Zolotukhin, Petr V.
AU - Umanets, Alexander
AU - Golovin, Sergey N.
AU - Malinovkin, Aleksey V.
AU - Belanova, Anna A.
AU - Lipilkin, Pavel V.
AU - Lipilkina, Tatyana A.
AU - Popov, Ilya V.
AU - Logvinov, Alexandr K.
AU - Dubovitsky, Nikita A.
AU - Stolbunova, Kristina A.
AU - Sobolev, Ivan A.
AU - Alekseev, Alexander Yu.
AU - Shestopalov, Alexander M.
AU - Burkova, Valentina N.
AU - Chikindas, Michael L.
AU - Venema, Koen
AU - Ermakov, Alexey M.
PY - 2023/2/9
Y1 - 2023/2/9
N2 - Coronaviruses (CoVs) pose a huge threat to public health as emerging viruses. Bat-borne CoVs are especially unpredictable in their evolution due to some unique features of bat physiology boosting the rate of mutations in CoVs, which is already high by itself compared to other viruses. Among bats, a meta-analysis of overall CoVs epizootiology identified a nucleic acid observed prevalence of 9.8% (95% CI 8.7-10.9%). The main objectives of our study were to conduct a qPCR screening of CoVs' prevalence in the insectivorous bat population of Fore-Caucasus and perform their characterization based on the metagenomic NGS of samples with detected CoV RNA. According to the qPCR screening, CoV RNA was detected in 5 samples, resulting in a 3.33% (95% CI 1.1-7.6%) prevalence of CoVs in bats from these studied locations. BetaCoVs reads were identified in raw metagenomic NGS data, however, detailed characterization was not possible due to relatively low RNA concentration in samples. Our results correspond to other studies, although a lower prevalence in qPCR studies was observed compared to other regions and countries. Further studies should require deeper metagenomic NGS investigation, as a supplementary method, which will allow detailed CoV characterization.
AB - Coronaviruses (CoVs) pose a huge threat to public health as emerging viruses. Bat-borne CoVs are especially unpredictable in their evolution due to some unique features of bat physiology boosting the rate of mutations in CoVs, which is already high by itself compared to other viruses. Among bats, a meta-analysis of overall CoVs epizootiology identified a nucleic acid observed prevalence of 9.8% (95% CI 8.7-10.9%). The main objectives of our study were to conduct a qPCR screening of CoVs' prevalence in the insectivorous bat population of Fore-Caucasus and perform their characterization based on the metagenomic NGS of samples with detected CoV RNA. According to the qPCR screening, CoV RNA was detected in 5 samples, resulting in a 3.33% (95% CI 1.1-7.6%) prevalence of CoVs in bats from these studied locations. BetaCoVs reads were identified in raw metagenomic NGS data, however, detailed characterization was not possible due to relatively low RNA concentration in samples. Our results correspond to other studies, although a lower prevalence in qPCR studies was observed compared to other regions and countries. Further studies should require deeper metagenomic NGS investigation, as a supplementary method, which will allow detailed CoV characterization.
KW - INFECTIONS
KW - ASTROVIRUSES
KW - RESERVOIRS
KW - EVOLUTION
KW - ALPHA
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-023-29099-6
DO - 10.1038/s41598-023-29099-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 36759670
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 13
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 2306
ER -